


A Forgotten Spark

by Phlinting



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Happy Ending, M/M, Magical Sheriff Stilinski, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Soulmates, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Werewolf Mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlinting/pseuds/Phlinting
Summary: Noah Stilinski always knew something was missing, but it took the death of his son and some seriously heavy drinking for a few very important memories to shake loose. The question now is what the hell is he going to do about it? And can he trust Peter Hale to actually help?This story starts with Stiles's death several years after the TV series ended, but don't worry, he won't stay dead. I wouldn't do that to one of my favorite Teen Wolf characters.Time travel fix-it!
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale/Sheriff Stilinski
Comments: 356
Kudos: 546





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently 4 stories and 115k words wasn't enough to purge the Teen Wolf stories still brewing in my head, so here we go with another one. This is not related to the others.

**Trigger warning for temporary suicidal thoughts**

The stench was awful but somehow also very familiar.

Peter followed his nose as myriad questions danced through his mind. Why was he here? Why now? How had he even found this place? It was supposed to be magically hidden from humans. There was no way he could have stumbled upon it accidentally.

"Sheriff?" Peter called, careful to make enough noise to avoid being shot as he stepped into the clearing surrounding the nemeton. He moved faster when the man didn't answer, the stink of alcohol and unwashed clothing clogging Peter's nose as he moved closer. "Sheriff Stilinski?"

He could hear the man's heartbeat so he knew he was alive, but just about everything else about him suggested "dead body."

"Sheriff?" Peter asked, gently tapping the unshaven jaw. "Come on, Sheriff, time to wake up."

"Go…'way."

"Nope," Peter said, relieved to know that the man was at least capable of responding verbally. "It's the middle of the night and I'm not leaving you here to get eaten by whatever lives in these woods."

"W'wolves," the sheriff mumbled belligerently.

"No such thing," Peter said jovially. He knew that Stiles had explained the supernatural and all the related shenanigans to his father years ago, so he was hoping the denial might upset the sheriff enough to wake him a little more.

"W'wolves 'nd kan'mars 'nd neme… neme…" The man mumbled a word that Peter had never heard him use in all the years he'd known him and then lifted his right arm to vaguely point a gun in Peter's direction. "'N' sparks 'n' bitches who promised." He sobbed just once, the harsh expulsion of air ringing loudly in Peter's ears. "She promised. Said he'd be safe."

"Who said?" Peter asked, happy to keep the guy talking as he tried to figure out the logistics of carrying an extremely drunk, overly emotional, gun-toting sheriff out of the preserve.

"The bitch," the sheriff said, rolling his hand—gun and all—in a circular motion as if it would help him remember the bitch's name. "The bitchy bitch. Ta-ta-tail something, something."

"Can you walk?" Peter asked, more concerned about the sheriff freezing to death than trying to interpret his near-incoherent rambling.

"'Course I can walk," the sheriff said, not even bothering to try and prove it. He muttered several more words, apparently still stuck on the bitch who'd broken her promise, before mumbling three tiny words that stopped every thought process in Peter's head. "Talia fucking Hale."

~*~

Noah was surprised to wake up.

The bright rising sun did not help his fucking headache, but he was pretty sure this wasn't the afterlife. His tongue tasted like something had crawled into his mouth and died. Which, now that he thought about it, was an _actual_ possibility considering where he'd headed once the alcohol had started to affect him.

He wasn't even sure how he knew the whereabouts of the nemeton, but he had a fairly solid memory of stumbling directly to it. He cracked his eyelids open just a peep to confirm his actual whereabouts.

It took an embarrassingly long time to realize he was cuddled up to something warm and breathing. He almost didn't want to know. Cat's played with their food. Was it the same for mountain lions? Was there a predator at his back keeping him warm just so they could chase and kill him once he was awake?

"Good morning, Sheriff."

Crap, he knew that voice. Predator, yes. Waiting to kill him? Probably not. Peter Hale never did anything without a reason, and since Noah no longer had anything worth protecting he was reasonably safe from being murdered horribly.

And that thought reminded him of all the reasons he'd turned to the bottle last night. Fuck. The mountain lion would have been preferable.

"Go away," Noah managed to mumble through dry, cracked lips.

"Now is that any way to talk to someone who saved your life?" Peter asked in that smug tone.

"Not worth saving," Noah admitted, cringing in mortification when he realized he'd said that out loud.

"On the contrary." Peter sounded almost gleeful. "Considering the conversation we had last night, I would say you are very much worth saving."

Anger built so quickly that even Noah was surprised to find himself standing in front of a reclining Peter Hale with his gun pointed at the werewolf's head. "How the fuck did you come to that conclusion?" Noah shook his head and regretted the movement immediately. He'd been sober for so long that he'd forgotten just how awful a hangover could be. "Scratch that. I don't care." He turned away, determined to find more alcohol now that he remembered everything. "I don't give a fuck. Without Stiles I have nothing left."

"Stiles?" Peter asked, sounding genuinely shocked. "What happened?"

"Scott got him killed! That's what happened," Noah growled in a low voice, anger surging through him even as he realized his service revolver was still in his hand. He stopped to stare at the metal glinting in the early morning sun. He'd never really considered deliberate suicide. Drinking himself to death had seemed far less cowardly. And he had no idea how the fuck he'd come to that conclusion. Dead was dead and there wasn't a person left on the planet who would give a shit _how_ he died. There was no one left for him to disappoint. He didn't even realize he was staring at the gun and mumbling to himself until Peter Hale used his unfair supernatural speed to remove it from his hand. "Give it back."

"Nope," Peter said, emptying the bullets into his hand and dropping them into his jacket pocket. He tucked the gun into the back of his jeans.

"Peter," Noah growled in what was supposed to be a warning tone. It more likely came out sounding like the begging of a desperate man.

"Sher—"

"No," he said, cutting off the title. "Not the sheriff right now."

"Fair enough," Peter said agreeably, "but perhaps you could give me a name to use then? Mr. Stilinski sounds too formal considering you just spent the night sleeping in my arms."

"Way to make it creepy," Noah said, rubbing a hand over his eyes to hide the tears that a werewolf could probably smell anyway.

"I could always call you 'sweetheart,'" Peter teased.

Noah wanted to fucking shoot him. "Give me back my gun."

"Give me a name."

"Fine. Call me Noah." He held out his shaking hand and was more than a little surprised when Peter handed the gun back. He arched an eyebrow and waited as long as he could before the sun and the headache and the nausea he'd been trying to ignore forced him to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths. He wriggled his fingers anyway. "Bullets," he demanded.

"Not until we have a discussion," Peter said in a tone that someone who didn't know the man's history would consider reasonable.

Noah shook his head hard and quickly regretted every decision he'd ever made. Holy fuck that was one hell of a headache.

~*~

Peter was grateful for the reflexes he'd been born with as he managed to catch the sheriff before the human face-planted into the jagged edge of the nemeton.

It was almost hilarious—in a seriously fucked up way—that Peter had prevented a poorly considered suicide attempt only for the man to almost lose his life in an accident as he collapsed into unconsciousness.

Peter wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of his life, but his attention was caught by four tiny little scars on the back of Noah's neck, and he suddenly had a million questions that needed some very serious answers.

Rather than put the guy down, Peter simply adjusted, lifted the sheriff higher against his chest, and then turned toward his car.

Noah's rambling last night had actually filled in some details Peter had thought lost to the fire that had killed his family. He'd also realized between the two of them they might have a way of avoiding the nightmare that their lives had devolved into over the past two decades.

But first he wanted some answers and for that he needed Noah sober.


	2. Chapter 2

"He needs a hospital," Melissa mumbled even as she unwrapped the IV kit. She tore open a tiny packet and rubbed an alcohol wipe over Noah's inner elbow.

"You're welcome to try," Peter said, attempting to hide how concerned he felt. "He literally held a gun to my head when I suggested it earlier."

The gun hadn't been loaded—apparently something Noah had forgotten—but he'd sounded desperate enough to avoid the humiliation that Peter had caved and offered a compromise. Noah hadn't been thrilled to involve Melissa McCall but he'd passed out again before he'd managed to win the argument. Peter had decided he'd won by default and promptly made the call.

"Do we know what triggered his drinking?" Melissa asked as she carefully pushed the IV into Noah's vein.

"Scott didn't call you?" Peter asked, completely bewildered that the True-fucking-Alpha could be so cruel. There was no way that idiot had "earned" his red eyes the way the Druidic legends suggested it was supposed to happen.

"I was on a double shift," Melissa said, obviously trying to think the best of the child she'd raised even as doubt leaked into her scent. She knew her son's failings. She always had.

Peter wasn't in the mood to sugarcoat it. "Stiles died sometime yesterday."

Melissa gasped in shock. "H–How? Where?"

Peter shook his head. "I don't know the details." He tilted his head toward Noah who was still very much unconscious. "He's been rambling on and off since I found him but not much of it has been coherent." And the rest Peter wasn't willing to share.

"I'll call Scott," Melissa said, taping the IV into place and then checking Noah's vitals again before reaching for her phone.

The conversation was brief and—even taking into account the possibility that Scott was suffering from shock—callous in the extreme.

Melissa placed a hand against her own forehead and tried to take a deep breath. "You should have called me, Scott."

"I thought the sheriff would let you know."

"Oh, Scott," Melissa lamented quietly. " _You_ should have called me."

"I will, next time. Okay, I will."

Peter had to assume Scott was talking about letting Melissa know about the deaths of his other packmates since Stiles wasn't actually going to die again. But then Scott added an excuse involving a date with a new girlfriend and three missed calls from Stiles that had Peter growling low in his throat. Such a selfish fucking child.

"He was your brother, Scott, in everything but blood. You shouldn't have left him unprotected and you should have at least tried to retrieve his body."

"The wendigo had already eaten most of him by the time we got there," Scott offered by way of excuse.

"Did you at least kill the wendigo?" Peter asked, already knowing the fucking answer. The true alpha did not kill, not ever. Not even in defense of his pack.

Scott's response was to verbally berate his mother for being in the same room with Peter. He was more concerned about how Peter had gotten her phone number than the possibility that she was being held against her will. Clearly Scott wasn't any more worried about his mother's safety than he'd been of Stiles's.

She gave Peter a tremulous attempt at a smile before her knees gave way and she collapsed onto the bed beside Noah. Peter plucked the phone from her nerveless fingers, stabbed the off button with more force than necessary, and dropped it into the same pocket with Noah's bullets.

"Stay with him," Peter ordered in as soft a tone as he could muster considering the rage coursing through him. "I'll go make some breakfast and then we'll all try and get some rest."

Melissa nodded, awkwardly kicked her shoes off, and lay down on the bed beside Noah. She placed her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart and curled into his side. Peter could still smell her silent tears when he reached the kitchen.

~*~

"Peter?" Derek asked, apparently confused to be getting a call from his dear uncle, a man he hadn't spoken to in several years. They'd swapped numbers the last time Derek had been in Beacon Hills but they'd never actually called each other.

"I need you to come home."

"Not happening," Derek said, audibly grinding his teeth together in an attempt to hold back his irritation. Peter knew Derek had spent a lot of time and money trying to come to terms with everything that had happened since Paige had died in his arms, but it seemed pretty obvious he wasn't ready to get dragged back into the town that was the source of most of his nightmares.

Well, he could just get the fuck over that.

"I need your help," Peter said, his voice quivering slightly. He cleared his throat and tried to pretend that hadn't happened. Showing weakness was never going to be comfortable for him.

"Stop with the manipulative bullshit," Derek said tiredly, "and just tell me what you want."

Peter sighed, secretly relieved that Derek had assumed he was faking his emotional state. "I need you to come home so that you can collect some things from Stiles's jeep. I doubt the all mighty true moron will let me get close enough."

"Why not just ask Stiles?"

Hell, Peter hadn't quite thought this phone call through. If Scott hadn't bothered to call his own mother, why had Peter assumed he would call Derek? The last thing Peter wanted to do was explain to Derek over the phone, but he'd painted himself into a corner. It was a rather glaring testament to the agitation he was feeling. He never did anything without careful planning and yet here he was botching the smallest part. Instead of lying or attempting to explain without explaining Peter chose the bald, honest truth.

"Stiles was killed by a wendigo yesterday."

"Shit," Derek whispered quietly. "The others?"

"As far as I know the rest of the pack is fine," Peter said dismissively. He didn't give a shit about the rest of the McCall pack. And yes, his daughter was included in that group. She'd followed McCall's lead in using Peter when they needed a killer on their team and pushing him away _because_ he was a killer. She'd drunk the Kool-Aid and aligned herself with the man who blamed Peter for everything bad in the world while simultaneously releasing killers back into the wild with a pat on the head and an admonishment to be good.

Scott McCall had no idea how many of those problems had circled back intending to take another shot since they had nothing to lose. But Peter did. He'd stopped them all and if he'd known there was a wendigo anywhere near Stiles's hotel room he would have tracked him to his nest and taken out the whole damn family. "Oh and the wendigo is also fine," he said to Derek. "Scott caught him in the act of _eating_ his best friend and packmate and instead of tearing the wendigo into tiny fucking pieces he let Stiles's murderer walk away. It was Deucalion and Julia Baccari and Gerard Argent and that alpha from Texas all over again."

"They're all dead."

"True," Peter agreed. "Well except for the werewolf cowboy. I've been waiting for him to swing back this way and try again."

"Ah," Derek said hesitantly. "That guy is um… also no longer a problem."

"Meaning?" Peter wasn't in the mood for games.

"Meaning I'm an alpha again." Derek's tone was gruff and maybe even a little embarrassed.

"Shit," Peter said, seeing only the way it would work against his plan. "If McCall won't let you collect Stiles's effects you're no use to me."

"He'll let me," Derek said confidently. "Even if he does notice that I'm an alpha again, he won't hold it against me. He's not that kind of alpha."

"He's not _any_ kind of alpha." Peter growled low in his throat before he realized Derek seemed to be agreeing to do it. "You'll come home? You'll help?"

"Of course," Derek said. "I'm working on the assumption you have a plan to get Stiles back. I can swing by London and collect Lydia if you need a banshee."

"Let's call that plan B," Peter suggested, quickly adapting his plan now that he was able to look at it from another angle. "I may have a way of making sure none of it ever happened."

"Time travel?" Derek asked dubiously. "Stiles was the only spark in his generation and even if there had been someone to train him, he would never have been strong enough to do that spell."

"True," Peter agreed, "but we've always assumed he inherited his skills from his mother."

"Noah?" Derek asked, disbelievingly. "You think Noah's a spark? That doesn't make any sense."

"Doesn't make it any less true."

"But why would he pretend for years to have no knowledge of the supernatural if he was a powerful spark?"

"I don't know the details," Peter said. "And I don't have all the answers I need yet, but I suspect it has something to do with the nemeton, a promise, and your mother."

Derek was quiet for a few moments perhaps parsing the possibilities of those connections. He sighed softly and finally said the words Peter needed to hear. "I'll be on the next flight."

~*~

Melissa was aware of someone moving about Noah's bedroom but she was too tired and overwhelmed to actually give a shit who it was or if they posed a threat. After the attacks from Munroe and her militia Scott had taken his pack on a recruitment drive, hoping to lead trouble away from Beacon Hills as they collected other displaced supernaturals. Stiles, Liam, and Malia had gone with him. Lydia had joined Jackson and Ethan in London and Chris and Derek had chosen to travel the world—separately and in different directions—hoping to be able to warn hunters who lived by the code and other packs and supernatural families of the trouble Munroe was creating.

Corey and Mason had disappeared, possibly literally, a few years back and despite Scott's assurances that they could protect themselves, Melissa had mourned the loss of yet another two young lives. Even if the boys weren't dead, they'd been forced out of their home long before they'd been old enough to build any sort of successful lives for themselves.

Melissa listlessly tracked the noises in Noah's house, listening to the taps in the bathroom as they were turned on and off, before footsteps led the person back into the bedroom.

"How's he doing?" Peter Hale asked quietly.

"He's no longer dehydrated," Melissa said, not bothering to open her eyes. They were too sticky and swollen from crying to use anyway. "As for the rest, we'll know more when he wakes up."

She was kind of surprised when Peter curled his fingers around her wrist, but she was more than a little grateful for the cool, wet washcloth he pressed into her hand.

"Derek's on his way home."

"Is it safe for him?" she asked as she pressed the cold washcloth against her heated eyelids. "Is it safe for you? I didn't even realize you were still in town."

"Stiles asked me to keep an eye on you and his dad," Peter said in a tone that suggested it hadn't been a hardship or an unreasonable request. Melissa suspected it had been a whole lot more difficult than that. Peter had always lived on the fringes of Scott's pack, but by choosing to stay behind he'd deliberately made himself an omega.

"How can you stay sane without a pack?"

"I see now where Scott gets his diplomacy skills." Peter's tone was playful but the words hit true.

"Sorry," Melissa mumbled, lifting the washcloth just enough to see the werewolf's face. "I just… Noah explained some of it… after the dead pool."

"Ah," Peter said in that smart-ass tone that no doubt rubbed her son the wrong way. "So the good sheriff warned you to keep your distance from the crazy wolf who killed his own niece."

"No, actually," Melissa said, annoyed for some unfathomable reason. She'd gotten _that_ warning from Lydia, Scott, Liam _and_ Malia. "When Noah told me what happened with Meredith he was more concerned by the events that led to that insanity, not the actions of a man pushed beyond his limits."

Peter seemed stunned into silence but Melissa wasn't going to let this werewolf off the hook either.

"Of course that was before you teamed up with the woman who killed your family and then abducted and tried to kill my son."

"Teamed up?" Peter asked with a cutting laugh. "Why is everyone so eager to paint me as the master manipulator but then happily interpret my actions on face value?"

"Are you saying you didn't try to kill my son?"

"I'm saying nothing of the sort," Peter said in a derogatory tone. "Your son is a poor alpha. Poor alphas endanger their packs so they are relieved of their power."

"Killed, you mean."

"Potato, potarto."

"How can you talk about murder so casually?"

"It's not murder, my dear. It's the way werewolf packs have worked for generations."

"Potato, potarto," Melissa said, parroting back his own words.

"It's a risk every alpha accepts when they take the alpha spark."

"My son didn't _take_ anything," Melissa spat, belatedly lowering her voice when she remembered that Noah was still sleeping beside her. "He _earned_ his alpha spark."

"Now see, there's a point we absolutely disagree on."

"Meaning?" Melissa asked through clenched teeth.

"Meaning your precious Scott didn't fit any of the criteria that usually creates a true alpha. In fact he was so far away from it that the result is rather hilarious."

"He obviously did something right."

"Or someone else did," Peter said cryptically, turning away as if the conversation was over. He stopped at the door and spoke without turning around. "You should eat something before you fall asleep again."

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

"Oh, hey Derek." Scott rubbed the back of his neck and glanced around the parking area of the cheap motel Derek had tracked them to. "Sorry, man, we didn't know what time you'd be arriving."

Derek twitched his lips into what he figured would probably pass as an understanding frown. It was better than what he was actually feeling and, for the first time in a long time, he was very grateful that Scott had never bothered to learn how to interpret the chemical signals indicating mood. They hadn't known what time Derek was arriving because they hadn't bothered to tell him they'd changed hotels. It had been simple dumb luck that had taken Derek in the right direction to find them.

"Noah asked me to collect the jeep and Stiles's belongings." Well he would have if he'd been able. It was close enough to the truth to not sound like a lie.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Scott said, turning away even as he spoke. He grabbed a set of keys off a ledge by the window. "Say hi to everyone for me?"

"Sure," Derek said, relieved not to have to make excuses to leave quickly. Ironically he was also pretty pissed that Scott hadn't bothered to offer any explanations or condolences. It was possible the kid was coping in the only way he knew how—and fuck, he was twenty-two and not actually a kid, no matter how stunted his emotional growth seemed to be—but he sure as hell didn't seem like a man who'd just lost his best friend. "Okay. Um… Stay safe."

"Always, man," Scott said, already turning away and closing the door.

Apparently "always" hadn't included Stiles.

Scott also hadn't noticed Derek's recent upgrade because he started talking when Derek was far enough away for a beta not to hear. His stomach twisted violently when he heard the true alpha complain to Liam and Malia about the way they'd been reduced to a single vehicle thanks to the sheriff's "ridiculous emotional attachment" to a jeep he wouldn't "ever use anyway."

Yeah, Derek wasn't sure what happened to the young man he'd once considered pack, but that guy at the motel wasn't the Scott McCall he remembered.

Derek drove the jeep nearly all the way to Beacon Hills before he felt safe enough to stop and check the hidden compartment Peter had told him about. Thankfully everything Peter had said would be in there was still there along with a few other items Derek didn't recognize.

Hopefully something in there would help them get Stiles back.

~*~

Noah woke slowly.

He was a little bit surprised to wake up in his own bed but the fact there was a werewolf sitting on the mattress beside him reading a very old-looking book answered a few of his more obvious questions.

"Good morning, sunshine," Peter Hale said, closing the book with care and then carefully placing it on Noah's bedside table. He leaned over and gently peeled back the tape on Noah's inner elbow before extracting the needle of an IV that Noah hadn't even noticed. "Breakfast is ready whenever you are." He glanced at his phone, apparently checking the time because he added, "Well breakfast food for lunch works too, I suppose."

"I should be at work," Noah said, groaning at the effort it took just to try and move into a sitting position. It didn't help his self-esteem when Peter used a single hand to hold him down.

"I spoke to Deputy Parrish several hours ago. You're on bereavement leave."

"Shit," Noah whispered as the reasons for his dive to the bottom of a scotch bottle came flooding back to him.

"Breathe with me, Sheriff," Peter ordered, somehow all the other way around the other side of the room without Noah having seen him move. The hand pressed against his sternum was very warm, the touch grounding in a way Noah would never have suspected. "That's it." Noah hadn't even noticed his own hand was clasped in Peter's and pressed against the werewolf's chest until he followed Peter's order to breathe again. "Better?"

"Yeah," Noah said, forcing his breathing to stay calm and not let his mind slide back into panic. His son was gone. Panicking now was a waste of fucking time. He'd already lost everything that mattered.

"Not everything," Peter whispered, suggesting not only had Noah said that out loud but that Peter hadn't really meant to verbally respond either.

Seeming suddenly uncomfortable Peter removed his hands slowly, glancing down at Noah's hand still pressed against him before lifting his gaze back up to Noah's face. The man gave him a sad smile and Noah reluctantly pulled his hand back. "Sorry."

"Apologies aren't necessary, but I do find myself with many unanswered questions."

"About?" Noah asked, already feeling belligerent. He didn't have to explain himself to anyone.

"About the claw marks at the back of your neck, for starters."

"The what?" Noah asked, running his hand over the tiny and very familiar imperfections on his skin.

"They're scars from werewolf claws," Peter said casually.

"Don't be ridiculous," Noah said, quickly dismissing the claim despite wondering if the accusation had merit. "They're what's left of an ill-considered trip to the tattooist. Claudia had the same scars."

"Claudia had the same scars?"

Noah frowned as again the words came out of his mouth without him having any real control. "Yes, they're what's left of an ill-considered trip to the tattooist."

"Did you hear that?" Peter asked, moving closer and apparently staring into Noah's eyes as if the answer lay within.

"Hear what exactly?" Noah asked, his heart rate increasing as he tried to deny he knew exactly what Peter was referring to.

"The pitch and tone, the cadence of that sentence. They're wrong. They're almost…"

"Like they're programmed," Noah finished for him. "Yeah, I heard that." He dragged a hand down his unshaven face. "Ask me again."

"How did you get the scars on your neck?"

"They're what's left of an ill-considered trip to the tattooist."

"Okay," Peter said. "Food first. Questions after."

"Whatever," Noah said, letting Peter help him off the bed. He'd answer whatever questions Peter wanted answered and then he was climbing back into a scotch bottle and this time he wasn't planning on coming back out.

~*~

Peter had never actually met a zombie but Noah was doing a pretty good job of imitating one. He followed where Peter led, he ate what he put in front of him, and once he realized the liquor cabinet was locked he ignored just about everything else. He didn't even flinch at the sudden noise when the house phone rang. Peter considered answering it but when he realized Noah had an answering machine he let the device take care of it.

The caller left a detailed message regarding an unpaid medical test that wasn't covered by the sheriff's insurance. Peter made a mental note to track down and pay as many of Noah's outstanding bills as he could and then turned back to the dishes he'd been washing.

"You said you had questions," Noah grumbled, apparently willing to talk if it meant Peter would give him back the key to the liquor cabinet.

"Many questions, yes," Peter said calmly, "but I fear we won't really get any answers until Derek arrives."

"Derek's in town?"

"He'll be here in a few hours. He collected the jeep and Stiles's things on his way through."

Noah nodded, keeping his gaze on the table in front of him as he blinked rapidly to dispel the tears. "Anything else?"

"When I found you at the nemeton you were mumbling about sparks and a 'bitch' who broke her promise. At first I thought you were just rambling, but then you mentioned my sister."

"The one who died in the fire?" Noah asked.

"You used her full name." Peter nodded and smirked. "I can't say I remember her middle name being 'fucking' but I'm happy to roll with it. I have many reasons to think it appropriate."

"I don't understand," Noah said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "I never met your sister. Why would I blame her for anything?"

"Why indeed," Peter said, pleased at least that Noah was following the conversation. "I noticed the scars on your neck when I stopped you from face-planting into the nemeton."

"The scars are what's left of an ill-cons—" Noah bit his lips together, trying hard not to say the words that someone had programmed into him. The rest of the words were mumbled and the sentence got finished near-silently, but it was a victory of sorts.

"Alpha werewolves are capable of removing memories—well technically they remove the recall paths to the memories rather than the memories themselves—by inserting the tips of their claws into the neck of a human or werewolf. It's a very delicate process and it takes quite a bit of finesse, but as we know from my lost memories of Malia, my sister Talia was very good at it."

"You think I knew Talia?"

"I do," Peter said. "I think you and Claudia both knew her. I also believe she stole something from you and if I'm right well…"

"Please don't," Noah said, holding up his hand. "Don't speculate. When Derek gets here he can do whatever he needs to and then we'll know what actually happened. Right now I can't handle anything else."

Peter nodded. "Sorry," he offered, wincing slightly when Noah gave him an incredulous look. Since waking from his coma Peter had made it his mission never to apologize for anything he said or did. Apparently Noah knew Peter well enough to notice when he broke that personal vow. He tried to hide his reaction by changing the subject. "Melissa should be back soon. She just ducked home to shower and change. She's the one you can thank for helping you avoid the mother of all hangovers. I hear they're rather unpleasant."

"Mel was here?"

"Surely you didn't think I set up a saline drip all by myself," Peter asked, falling back on his default setting of "sarcastic asshole."

"Whatever," Noah said tiredly. "I'm going to go watch TV."

Peter watched the man shuffle toward the living area as if he'd aged fifty years overnight. The sheriff's obvious grief just made Peter more determined to reverse what had happened and get Stiles back.

~*~

"How is he?" Derek asked the moment he climbed out of the jeep parked in the sheriff's driveway.

Peter spoke at a normal volume unconcerned of waking the man snoring loudly on the sofa beside him. "Not good," he answered honestly. "I haven't told him anything. His choice, not mine, but he knows you plan to stick your alpha claws in his neck and poke around inside his head. To be honest I don't think he cares what you might find."

"Is that why you volunteered for me to do it? Scared of learning what the good sheriff thinks of a pack's left hand?"

"Something like that," Peter agreed, hoping that Derek was still too far away to hear the uptick in his heart when he voiced the partial lie.

"You've never given two shits about other people's opinions," Derek said as he opened the back door of the jeep. "Why is Noah Stilinski the first?"

"I have my reasons," Peter said, the words coming out a little too raw for him to hide his honesty.

"Would they be reasons of the mating kind?" Derek asked, his tone low and sympathetic.

Peter sighed, resigned to facing the truth he'd been trying to avoid for years. Sheriff Noah Stilinski was his destined mate. He was human. He was straight. And he followed the law. Basically they had nothing in common. "How did you know?"

"Unlike Scott McCall I did learn how to interpret the chemical changes in people's scents. You always smell like attraction and longing and grief when he's around."

"It's an impossible thing," Peter said, trying to push past the very familiar pain in his chest. "No need to dwell on things that will never happen."

"For what it's worth," Derek said as he reached the front door of the Stilinski residence, "I'm sorry, Uncle."

"Me too." Peter sighed softly, lifted himself off the sofa, and then moved to open the front door. "And we have more important things to worry about right now."

~*~

Melissa had never been comfortable with the way werewolves could stick their claws into a human's neck and mess with their memory. Apart from the fact that it was seriously unsanitary and the risks for infection and injury way too high, it also felt like a serious breach of trust.

There was no way anyone—even someone as nice as Derek Hale—was getting their claws into her neck. No way in hell.

But Noah seemed far more agreeable than she'd expected.

"You don't have to do this," she said one final time. "There has to be a safer way. Hypnosis, meditation, therapy, copious amounts of alcohol. From what you've told me it worked last night. Maybe we could try something stronger like prescription drugs to open your mind more fully."

"Mel, I want to know," Noah said, reaching for Melissa's hand. "Someone stole my memories. I want to know what they stole and I don't want to wait years to find out." He tilted his head toward Peter Hale. "I don't want to wait any longer. We might already be too late."

"Okay," Melissa agreed sadly.

Talia Hale had removed Derek's knowledge of the nemeton's whereabouts—information that could have saved Scott, Stiles, and Allison from having to perform a ritual that damn near killed them—and she'd taken all of Peter's knowledge of his daughter and stolen his right to be a father. What had she stolen from Noah and Claudia?

"Ready?" Derek asked, drying his hands after having scrubbed them as thoroughly as any surgeon Melissa had known.

"I'm good," Noah said, moving to sit on the chair Peter had specifically moved into the middle of the room. "Let's get this done."

Derek gave Melissa one last questioning look and at her small nod moved to stand behind Noah. Everyone held their breath as Derek very carefully sank his claws into Noah's skin.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

"Holy shit," Derek whispered as he finally pulled his claws out of Noah's neck.

It had felt like the two men had been at it for days. It was probably closer to a couple of hours, but it was a relief all the same to have it over. Peter watched gleefully as the wounds healed as quickly as a werewolf's.

"What the hell just happened?" Melissa asked. She had a handful of gauze ready to press against the wounds and seemed a little miffed that her nursing services weren't required.

"We know what Mom stole," Derek said, swallowing hard. He moved backward to take a seat on the sofa as if his legs were no longer able to hold him up.

"And that was?" Peter asked impatiently.

"All knowledge of my spark," Noah said, his eyes glowing an eerie silver color. Peter couldn't have stopped his eyes flashing blue in return even if he'd tried. Submitting to his mate was instinctive.

"And every memory Claudia had of him using it," Derek said softly. "She was fully human and we're pretty sure her illness was triggered by what Mom did."

"It may not have caused it," Noah said, proving that his hearing was also better than human now that he was actively using his spark. "But it was definitely a contributing factor."

"So we can fix things now?" Peter asked. "Sparks can time travel. Am I remembering that right?"

"We can," Noah agreed, his voice almost breathless.

"So now we go back in time and kill a certain wendigo before it gets anywhere near Stiles?"

"Fuck that," Melissa said, startling all of them into silence. "Go back and save them all. If you have the ability to change the past, go back and stop Talia from ever becoming an alpha. Stop the bitch in her tracks."

"Lady's got a point," Peter said, smiling broadly. "Any suggestions on _when_ we should start?"

Derek raised his hand timidly. "Maybe wait until after I'm born. Cora too. Mom was already an alpha then, but I'd appreciate not being wiped from existence."

"Of course," Peter said, waving his hand dismissively. "We don't want to mess up the timeline completely. It's not like you would ever have known though."

"I know _now_ , Uncle Peter," Derek growled, perhaps overestimating Peter's affection for chaos.

Peter reached over and pulled Derek toward him. The alpha let him scent him in a way that had once been natural affection for a packmate. Peter tilted his head back slightly and flashed his eyes in appeal. Derek laughed softly but flashed his red eyes in acknowledgment.

"Figures you would push your way into my pack rather than waiting to be invited," Derek grumbled.

"They call that topping from the bottom," Peter quipped, laughing happily at the sour look on his alpha's face.

"I'm regretting accepting you into the pack already."

"You love me," Peter teased with a wide grin.

"You're family," Derek said, rolling his eyes but unable to hide his own smile. "I had no choice but to accept you."

Peter was still enjoying the sensation of a real pack bond with a decent alpha when he realized Noah had dropped onto the sofa and put his head in his hands.

"Noah?" he asked, moving closer.

"I don't know what happened to my library." He lifted his gaze to Peter. "Time travel is nothing to mess around with. I need to do a hell of a lot of research before we can safely attempt it, no matter what date we choose, and I can't do that without my library.

"We may be able to help with that," Peter said, reaching for the duffle bag Derek had carried into the house. "Derek? There are more in the jeep?"

"I only grabbed as many as I could carry," Derek confirmed. "Stiles's pocket dimension is seriously huge."

"Stiles created a pocket dimension? Where?"

"In the jeep," Peter said, very pleased that the young spark had been able to not only create the secure storage but had apparently been able to expand its size over the past few years.

"That's pretty basic stuff for a spark as powerful as Stiles," Noah said, "but I guess it's not bad for someone with zero training." He opened the duffle and dragged out a couple of books, looking at them with an incredulous expression. "These are mine. They're from my library."

"I suspect most of them are," Peter offered. "I gave Stiles everything in the vault that had anything to do with sparks." He shrugged. "Werewolves have no ability to use the sort of magic native to a spark, so it makes sense that the books were probably yours in the first place."

"Wait," Derek said, seeming concerned now. "Just how powerful is Stiles?"

Peter wanted an answer to that too.

"Powerful enough to use magic instinctively," Noah said with a warm smile. "I remember more than one 'Bewitched' situation when toddler Stiles wanted something he wasn't allowed to have. There was one time in a variety store that probably would have gone viral on the Internet if it had happened today. A whole isle of toys dancing in the air and following us to the front counter is not exactly something you can deny when it's caught on a surveillance camera."

"So what changed?" Derek asked. "If Stiles was powerful enough to animate a couple dozen toys as a young child, why did he struggle to learn the most basic manipulation of mountain ash?"

"Maybe he just followed my lead?" Noah suggested. "I stopped using my spark so he did too?"

"Or someone made him stop," Peter said with a growl. "I remember reading a spell that's supposed to bind the magical skills of a young child."

Noah nodded. "Claudia and I did consider using it, especially after the supermarket incident." He scratched his cheek in thought. "But someone else casting it would explain why I have no memory of Stiles using his skills after Talia stole my memory." He frowned and pulled a few more books out of the duffle bag. "But spells like that have a kind of use-by date. They expire gradually to give the magic user a chance to adapt to their growing skills. Someone would have had to recast it every few years and we already know Talia wasn't the one directing it."

"Deaton?"

"Most likely."

"I never liked that creepy little druid," Melissa said with a growl in her voice. "Never gave a straight answer on anything."

"Do we know what happened to him? Did he leave town the same time as the pack?"

"I'll call Chris," Melissa said, already pulling up his details on her phone. "Maybe he knows."

~*~

Noah listened to the others speculate without bothering to explain what he knew. If Deaton had been casting a binding spell on Stiles for all these years, there was also a good chance he'd been siphoning off the power and using it for himself.

With Stiles's death his spark "died" too, so the siphoning spell would have rebounded with an incredible amount of force.

Deaton was very likely dying or maybe already a rotting corpse not far from Stiles's last known location.

And Noah was almost sad that changing the timeline would erase the painful end that slimy little asshole fully deserved.

~*~

Normally Derek enjoyed the research part of things, but this situation wasn't like any others he'd faced over the years. They weren't researching the latest bad guy and how to stop them. This research involved magic and it was something Derek had never really bothered to learn. Not even when Stiles had been trying to teach himself how to control his spark.

In all honesty he'd thought Stiles had been barely more talented with magic than the average human. And even then he'd assumed it had something to do with his above-average intellect and not an innate skill he'd inherited from his incredibly powerful father. When he'd found the pocket dimension Peter had described, Derek had realized he'd missed a whole lot of progress in the past few years.

He'd also missed Scott McCall's descent into a true _asshole_. The man he'd spoken to earlier that day had very little in common with the kid Derek had tried to draw into his pack the first time he'd been an alpha. Then again, maybe that had also been a natural progression. Teenage Scott hadn't listened to those around him, not even Stiles. Why would he bother to seek their advice as he'd gotten older? He'd already believed he had all the answers before he'd become a true alpha. The power boost had just proved to him that he was right.

"You doing okay?" Melissa asked as she placed two filled coffee cups on the table between them. She didn't bother to keep her voice down since both men in the other room had supernatural hearing.

"Just remembering the two boys I caught trespassing on my family's land years ago."

"Me too," Melissa said, nodding a couple of times. "There was a time when Scott would have protected Stiles with his life. I don't understand how he can be so unaffected by his death."

Derek shook his head, not really wanting to dredge up Scott's every failing with the mother who loved him dearly.

"Peter has never believed Scott earned his alpha eyes. Do you think he's right?"

"Maybe," Derek admitted after an internal argument that lasted way less time than it probably should have. "Scott had just betrayed his friends and gone off with the enemy. That's not the sort of thing that leads to becoming a true alpha." Derek grimaced and gave Melissa a sad smile. "And that was after he forced me to bite Gerard Argent. I would have helped him if he'd told me the plan, but he used me instead."

He almost added that forcing an alpha to bite someone was tantamount to rape in werewolf circles, but it was a fact he was very good at ignoring. His emotions, however, often put Kate and Scott into the same category—abusers. And that more than anything else proved to Derek that Scott wasn't fit to be a true alpha.

Derek had been raised to believe the elevation to alpha without having to inherit or kill for it was a sacred event to behold, almost a religious experience in its purity, and yet the reality had been far from it.

~*~

"Peter," Noah said in a kind tone. "Go get some rest."

"I'm fine," Peter claimed instinctively, forcing himself upright and blinking his eyes rapidly in an effort to wake up.

"You're exhausted," Noah said, reaching over to press a warm hand to his cheek. Peter was too tired to startle at the contact, but he turned his gaze to Noah and had no hope in hell of hiding the raw emotion coursing through him. Noah gave him a sad smile. "I understand now. I know why you stayed."

Peter swallowed hard, unable to speak, his heart and soul on display as he stared into his mate's eyes.

"Go get some sleep," Noah ordered again. "I'll join you in a few minutes."

"Huh?"

Noah laughed softly, a sound Peter had never in his wildest dreams thought would be directed at him.

"My bed is big enough for both of us," Noah said, leaning closer. "Just let me hold you tonight. We'll figure the rest out later."

"You know?" Peter asked, desperately trying to rewind the conversation in his mind. "You know we're— I mean…" He shook his head in confusion. "You know?"

"So does Derek." Noah reached for Peter's hand and urged him to stand. "He helped me rewire the memories. I know there's more for me to remember, but I do recall the day we met. You were an angsty, bratty teenager and I was a newly married man with a kid on the way. "

"Evidence suggests I also had a kid on the way at the time."

"True," Noah agreed. "It was a complicated situation all around."

"Let me guess," Peter said as some of his sister's more questionable decisions rose to the forefront of his mind, "Talia offered to help make it all better."

Noah closed his eyes and nodded. "It didn't even occur to me not to trust her. She was a well liked and highly respected alpha of a peaceful, stable pack. It wasn't even meant to be permanent. She was only supposed to erase our one and only meeting and then keep us apart for a few more years. I loved Claudia with all my heart and I cherish the memories I have of her, but I knew I'd never be able to stay away from you once I knew we were mates." He shrugged sadly. "You were young. Claudia was pregnant and vulnerable. I didn't want to hurt either of you and Talia's suggestion sounded like the perfect solution."

"Until she betrayed you."

"I'm not sure it was just her," Noah admitted softly. "Before Derek's help, I had no memory of ever meeting Talia but I now remember Stiles being a powerful spark even as a toddler. If she'd erased more than just our first meeting I wouldn't have known what was happening with Stiles."

"You think she stole your memories more than once?"

"It's explains a few things, but I probably won't know anything for sure until I can sort through the tangle of memories Derek unlocked. Even then I won't really be able to tell if anything is missing."

"Any theories on who were her coconspirators?"

"Deaton," Noah said, tilting his head in a way that suggested that was rather obvious. "Maybe her mate. Derek's dad seemed like the loyal type."

"He was," Peter agreed, mentally recalling all the times the man had acted like Talia could do no wrong. It had annoyed Peter endlessly as he'd been growing up. Having a mate so submissive to her had boosted Talia's already arrogant assumptions that she was right every single time, no matter the subject or situation.

"Maybe Claudia."

"You think your wife betrayed you?"

"Not knowingly," Noah said with a sad smile. "She would have been easy to manipulate, especially once her illness had begun."

"An illness that my sister caused!" Peter growled, the noise rumbling deep in his chest. If Talia were still alive he'd track her down and demand answers.

"Not necessarily," Noah said, giving Talia more compassion than she deserved. "But I do find myself wondering if Talia's actions are what led to your pack's destruction."

Peter had wondered that himself—even before the revelations of today—but he was interested in how Noah had come to that conclusion. He raised an eyebrow and waited for Noah to explain. The man just shook his head.

"Later," he promised. "We both need sleep, and I need a chance to process." He rolled his eyes. "I may have read one too many psychology books when Stiles was suffering nightmares." He squeezed Peter's hand and pointed him in the direction of the stairs. "I'll join you in a few minutes." He didn't wait for a response, just turned to talk to Melissa and Derek. Peter listened to the quiet conversation regarding sleeping arrangements as he stripped off his clothes and climbed into a bed he'd never expected to see let alone sleep in.

~*~

Noah was tired enough to fall into bed and sleep for a week, but he was also anxious to find the answers he needed. The sense of urgency was rather ironic. With the ability to time travel he essentially had all the time he needed to get things right.

And he had to get things right first time. They needed a way to be certain what they changed only affected the things they wanted fixed. Saving Stiles at the expense of several other innocent deaths was not a palatable solution for Noah. He needed to do a hell of a lot more research first.

And even though the loss of his son was going to be temporary he still felt the need to take a moment and grieve everything he'd lost.

He was doing his usual perimeter check of the house, making sure all the doors and windows were secured the way he'd always done when he'd believe himself human, when he saw the keys to Roscoe. He smiled at the silly name Stiles had given his beloved jeep even as he reached for them.

It was dark outside but not actually that late. Nevertheless he moved carefully, not wanting to disturb the neighbors as he climbed into the jeep and sat in the passenger seat remembering far better days.

But he startled so hard that he nearly gave himself a concussion when a familiar voice spoke from the driver's seat.

"Holy shit! It worked."

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

"Stiles?" Noah asked irritably. Yeah, it was a stupid reaction but in his defense he'd had no idea his son was even capable of preserving his soul and somehow becoming a permanent ghost is his own jeep.

"You can see me?" Stiles asked incredulously. "Holy shit. It really worked. You can see me!" He squinted at Noah looking into his eyes as if he'd never seen them before. Noah was pretty sure his eyes weren't glowing, but Claudia had always told him the outer edges of his irises would turn to a bright shade of silver whenever he was agitated. Fortunately it had been a rather rare occurrence and only under extreme conditions.

This situation probably qualified.

Noah gathered what was left of his tattered wits and gave his not-quite corporeal son a soft laugh and a relieved smile. He couldn't control the exasperated tone though. "What did you do?"

"What?" Stiles asked, seeming confused. "How am I in trouble? It's not like I actually let the wendigo eat me."

"Not the wendigo—though we'll circle back to that in a minute. What did you do? How did you manage to tie your soul to a jeep?"

They used to joke that Roscoe ran on a wish and a prayer and copious amounts of duct tape, but in light of everything he'd just learned Noah was starting to believe the "wish" part may have been true. Nothing else really explained the jeep's ability to keep running.

"Oh, um, I'm not tied to the jeep. I'm totally portable." Stiles grinned like the smart-ass son Noah remembered from his teenage years. "There's an artifact in the pocket dimension that I might have kind of liberated from Peter Hale after he resurrected himself."

"You stole it?" Noah asked, the lawman part of him still very much in charge despite his spark having activated with the restoration of his memories.

"Um… would you believe I was keeping it safe?"

"Excuses? Really?" Noah lamented.

Stiles flailed, proving some things never changed, even as a non-corporeal being. Well except for the part where Stile's arms flailed _through_ the dashboard and roof. That was kind of disturbing.

"I was making sure a madman couldn't resurrect himself again."

Yeah, there was at least one awkward discussion in their future since that "madman" was Noah's mate. Then again he could maybe avoid the whole traumatic experience by resetting the timeline sooner rather than later.

And they had more important things to worry about right now anyway.

"What's your range?"

"Huh?"

"How far away from the artifact can you travel?"

"Not far," Stiles said, frowning in annoyance. "I can barely get out of the jeep before it snaps me back."

"So… five or six feet?"

"Maybe seven if I try really hard," Stiles said with a shrug.

"Okay, well I can take it into the house if you like, but I gave your room to Derek for the night so you'll need to stay downstairs. I'm assuming you don't sleep in this form."

"You assume correctly, Daddio."

"Okay," Noah said, grinning broadly simply because he had his son back. "Show me which artifact I need to grab and we'll head into the house. I don't suppose you can cook in this form?"

Stiles laughed delightedly. "That would be so cool. Maybe I'll spend the night trying it."

"Just keep the noise down, all right? Mel and Derek are finally asleep." It was rather handy to be able to tell that just by using his spark. "I don't want them being woken by pots and pans flying around the kitchen."

"No haunting the guests. Got it!"

Noah breathed out a heavy sigh, overwhelmed with affection. "It's good to see you, son."

"It's good to be seen," Stiles said with a wide grin. "Any chance you're going to explain how you're somehow not human?"

"Later," Noah said, exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the past couple days. "Let me get some sleep first and then we'll go over everything that's relevant."

Stiles raised an eyebrow suggesting he'd caught onto the evasiveness of that statement.

"Tomorrow we'll go over _everything_ whether you think it's relevant for me to know or not."

"Fine," Noah said, still planning to skim over the parts involving his mate.

"And you'll explain why Peter Hale is sleeping in your bed?"

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head tiredly. He should have known Stiles's spark was still somewhat active even in this state. It was even possible he was stronger now that Deaton was no longer able to siphon away his magic.

"Yes, son, tomorrow I'll explain everything."

~*~

Peter's heart broke for Noah when he heard his mate slip into the jeep and start a one-sided, imaginary conversation with his dead son, but it wasn't until Noah started asking questions about an artifact that Stiles had apparently stolen that Peter realized Stiles—or at least the soul part of Stiles— was actually there.

Seriously? How the hell had Talia believed suppressing the powers of two very powerful sparks was a good idea? If Noah or Stiles had been active when Kate Argent had come to town they would have stopped her long before she'd gotten her hooks into a young, vulnerable Derek. And Peter had no doubt they would have stopped the fire that killed almost the entire Hale pack.

He could only hear Noah's side of the conversation but the man sounded so relieved that Peter couldn't help but smile. He'd always liked Stiles. He'd been the most tolerable of the sweaty, self-righteous juveniles that had made up the McCall pack.

Peter had a soft spot for Lydia too of course, but that probably had more to do with his appreciation for her help, even if it had been unintentional and most likely unwilling.

He laughed softly when he heard Noah ask Stiles if he could cook in his corporeal form. Hell, if anyone was capable of doing it…

Finally, after much discussion on what channel to leave the TV on and Stiles's apparent discovery that he could change channels without actually needing the remote, Noah wished his son good night and headed toward the bedroom.

Noah was tried—that was very obvious—but his mood was clearly buoyed by his son's appearance. Peter didn't bother pretending to be asleep.

"Can I assume the stolen artifact Stiles used was once mine?"

"You can," Noah said wryly. "Would you like to press charges?"

Peter laughed softly. "I think I can forgive such brilliant forethought. I'm glad he's back."

"Me too," Noah said, dropping his jeans and lifting his T-shirt over his head, before reaching for some sleepwear.

Peter's mouth salivated over the brief glimpse of his mate but he swallowed the soft groan. Now was not the time to leap into a physical relationship, but Peter found himself feeling rather impatient anyway. Noah may have believed himself to be human, thanks to Talia's interference, but his physique was just a little too perfect to be anything but supernatural. Peter was also willing to admit to a certain amount of bias.

"Can I hold you?" Noah asked as he slid into the other side of the bed.

Peter nodded, feeling ridiculously shy. None of this felt real. Only hours ago he'd told Derek that it was an impossible thing. He'd held this man in his arms last night and spent the whole time reminding himself that it was just a matter of survival. He'd been keeping his mate from freezing to death and if Noah had been conscious enough to walk out of the preserve that's what would have happened.

But this? The here and now? This was so far beyond anything that Peter dreamed possible that he was almost frozen with fear. Intellectually he knew saying or doing something wrong right now wasn't going to turn Noah away from him—hell, the man knew Peter's past and he was still here—but the fear was near crippling.

"Peter?" Noah asked softly. When he shivered instead of answering Noah pressed a little closer. "It's been a really long day. I can back off if you want a chance to deal with everything that's changed."

"No," Peter said, grabbing the hand Noah had resting on his hip. "No, please. I just…"

"For what it's worth," Noah whispered, moving closer and urging Peter to roll over and face him, "I'm so sorry. I would have been at the hospital every day if only I'd known."

"Not your fault," Peter said, swallowing hard. Six years alone had shaped his psyche far more than he ever wanted to admit, but just knowing his mate would have supported him through it meant so much more than he could explain.

"We'll figure out what happened and why and then we'll find a way to fix it."

"Will we remember this timeline?"

"I will," Noah said. "Stiles too. It's part of being a spark. The privilege and the burden and all that bal—"

"Noah?" Peter asked, concerned by the way the man had stopped midsentence.

"Sorry, just untangling some of the memories Derek helped me unlock."

"Anything interesting?"

"Maybe," Noah said, seeming to set the memories aside for now. "Maybe not."

"So I won't remember?" Peter asked, wondering what he'd prefer.

"Normally, I'd say no, but I've never known a werewolf who managed to resurrect himself so you're kind of an unknown in this equation."

"So how does it work? Do you just jump back to a point in time and start changing things?"

"Not if you want the world to keep spinning," Noah said with a soft laugh. "There are things we can try first. Did you ever watch the movie Scrooged?"

"I read the book," Peter said, teasing his mate. "But yes, I did happen to stumble upon the movie on cable one Christmas."

"Such a book snob," Noah said with a soft laugh. "Okay, in _the book_ the ghosts of Christmas take Scrooge to various times in his life to observe events from an outsider's point of view. There's a—I don't want to call it a spell since it's not quite how a spark works… There's this _thing_ I can do that takes me into the past as an observer. I don't change anything, no one can see me, and I'm not going to explode the world if I run into myself."

"I think those movies were books before they were movies too you know."

"I'm pretty sure they weren't," Noah said, bluffing a little since he wasn't really certain of that fact.

"Maybe not," Peter conceded with a grin, "but books do offer a much more in-depth experience."

Noah huffed but Peter could tell by his scent that he wasn't upset. "I'm the sheriff in a very busy county with more than its fair share of supernatural problems. I barely have time to watch a whole movie."

"Okay," Peter said easily, "I accept that movies have their place."

"Thank you," Noah said, laughing softly again. "And I'll try to read more books."

"Can you take other observers into the past with you?"

"I can."

"Can I come too?"

Peter nearly startled himself out of the bed at the unexpected voice.

"You heard that?" Noah asked, sitting up to look over Peter's shoulder and toward the floor beside the bed where the voice had come from. Stiles looked like he was just a talking head. Yeah, that was fucking weird. "Stiles, son, didn't we already have this conversation?"

"No startling the guests? Yep, sure did, Daddio. Can I come with you? Or can you know, teach me how so I can do it myself?"

"Maybe, and hell no."

"Huh?"

"You can maybe come with me—it depends on what I find and whose input I need to interpret it—and hell, no, I'm not teaching you anything that advanced until I have time to teach you everything you should have been learning for the past twenty-two years."

"Fair," Stiles said. "Is it weird that Peter can see me?"

"Probably not," Noah said calmly. "It's possibly a side-effect of skin-on-skin contact with a spark. Or maybe it's something unique with Peter. You are tied to an artifact that he inhabited first."

"Maybe both," Peter suggested. "I didn't hear his voice when you were talking in the jeep earlier."

"Yeah, okay that makes sense." Stiles turned his attention to Peter. "Do I need to give you the shovel talk?"

"Big words from someone who got himself eaten," Peter said, forgetting for a moment that Stiles was his mate's son and Peter should probably drop the sass.

"Also a fair point," Stiles conceded. "What about you, Dad? Do you need, like, I don't know… The 'safe sex' talk maybe?"

"Hell, no," Noah said, sounding completely mortified. "And don't threaten my mate. Not ever."

Noah's stern words and warm embrace made everything inside Peter melt.

"Mates, huh? So that's a thing for sparks?"

"It is," Noah said in a tone that made it sound like an inquiry. "Let me guess… Derek?"

"Seriously? How the fu— fudge did you guess that?"

"Am I wrong?" Noah asked in a smug tone.

"No," Stiles said, sinking slowly back into the floor. "But you could have at least started your guesses with Lydia."

"That wasn't a guess," Noah said with a tiny shrug. "I'm the sheriff, remember? It's my job to observe people. You never looked at Lydia the way you look at Derek."

"Okay, yeah, I'm just gonna go now," Stiles said, very literally sinking into the floor. Peter wondered if the young man noticed the irony and decided he very likely did. It was the sort of thing Stiles would revel in.

"How did you even get here?" Noah asked. "You said your range was a maximum of seven feet."

"The pocket dimension I made is pretty big. It added at least five more feet when you brought the artifact out."

"I'll be right back," Noah said, pressing a kiss to Peter's temple before climbing out of the bed. "I have an artifact to move."

"Aw, Dad, you're stealing all my fun," Stiles said in a faked whiny voice. He winked at Peter just before he sank completely through the floor.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Derek woke early. He'd slept pretty well considering everything that had happened in the past couple days, but exhaustion could only take him so far. Sooner or later all of the grief he felt was going to overwhelm him. He'd lost so many people. One more was almost too much to bear.

The fact that it was Stiles—annoying, intelligent, ridiculous, and forever flailing Stiles Stilinski—somehow made it so much worse. Derek couldn't imagine feeling this sort of loss with any of the others in the McCall pack which just made the grief even more baffling.

How could he desperately miss a man he'd barely tolerated most days?

The newly formed pack bond with his uncle pulsed softly, reminding him that he wasn't completely alone, but in some ways that also made it worse. Peter was his uncle and his pack and yet the connection he felt to him paled in comparison to what he'd felt for Stiles.

"Good morning," Melissa whispered when Derek shuffled into the kitchen. She held up a box of teabags in silent question. They were a cheap generic brand and, knowing how much the Stilinski men loved their coffee, probably pretty stale but Derek nodded anyway and murmured a quiet thank you.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked as Melissa joined him at the kitchen table.

"Too noisy," she said, tapping the side of her head. "I don't understand what's going on with Scott." She covered her eyes with one hand, her tears leaking out regardless of her attempt to stop them.

Derek reached over and grabbed her hand, hoping to offer comfort.

"He was different," Derek admitted. "We rarely saw eye to eye, but when I collected the jeep…" Derek didn't know how to end that sentence in a way that wouldn't upset Melissa.

"He was callous and dismissive and breathtakingly arrogant," she finished, not even making it a question.

"Yeah," Derek admitted.

"He wasn't like that," Melissa said in a small voice. "He was never like that growing up. His dad… Well his dad could be a horse's ass, but he's not a bad guy. Scott didn't learn that from him."

"Maybe it was just his way of handling the grief of losing his best friend," Derek offered, even though he didn't believe it himself.

"It's more than that," Melissa said with a sad smile. She shook her head slowly. "My Scott was the kind of kid who convinced a patient in terrible pain that holding her hand, that _human_ contact could help reduce her pain. I don't know who I spoke to on the phone the other day, but that wasn't the kid I raised."

"Derek," Peter said, sounding sleepy despite the sudden escalation in his heart rate. "Noah and I will be down in a minute. There are some things we need to discuss with you and Melissa. Yes, yes, I told him. You heard me." There were a few seconds of silence and then Peter added, "I'm not saying that. No, I'm not." Another few seconds that may have included a low growl and then, "Fine. I give up. Fine. I'll tell him. Derek, we have several _very important, life-altering, mind-blowing things_ that need _totally serious_ explaining." Derek was surprised he couldn't hear Noah's voice, but he was at least reasonably sure that Peter wasn't talking to himself. Well, mostly. "Happy now? Honestly, the faster we get you out of that thing the better."

Yeah, Derek had a feeling he didn't want to know what that last sentence meant. He might approve of whatever was happening between Peter and Noah but he sure as hell didn't want the details.

"Noah and Peter are on their way down."

"I'll get some coffee going," Melissa said, apparently happy to ignore the way she'd been crying only a minute ago.

Derek gave her a sad smile and let the woman pretend.

~*~

Stiles hated that the only way he'd been able to wake his dad was by yelling the damn house down, but that's what he got for putting the artifact too far away from his bedroom.

Of course the yelling had startled Dad and Peter both, but Stiles refused to feel remorse. Melissa was hurting and Derek didn't even know Stiles was alive—well alive-ish. Explanations were required immediately.

And damn, how could he be craving coffee when he had neither a nose to smell it or a body to drink it?

"Dad, hurry up!"

"I'm here," Dad said, finally grabbing the artifact and moving it and Stiles into the kitchen where he could see Melissa instead of just hear her grief. "Good morning, Mel, Derek."

"Sheriff," Derek said with a respectful nod. Damn, Stiles had a fine mate. In fact, even when Dad had arrested Derek for a murder that he hadn't committed Derek had been nothing but polite to him.

Dad placed the orb in the center of the table.

"What's that?" Melissa asked, moving a little closer.

"That is the artifact I used to store my soul while I waited for the full moon to resurrect me," Peter said with a wide grin.

"And it's here because?" Derek prompted.

"Because Stiles stole it from me."

Stiles squawked in outrage and gave his father a betrayed pout when he laughed out loud.

"Because," Dad said, grinning brightly and obviously very happy, "Stiles managed to store his soul in a similar fashion."

"He what?" Derek asked, his tone rather flat. Yeah, that wasn't encouraging.

"The artifact captures and contains the soul until it can be returned to his body."

"Stiles was eaten," Derek reminded them in that same flat tone. "Unless he plans to inhabit a great big pile of sh—"

"We still have the time travel option," Melissa said, cutting off Derek's rather crude description of Stiles's current problem. "Any suggestions on what we need to change to get a better outcome?"

"I have a few ideas," Dad said, "but I'm still sorting through the memories Derek managed to unlock."

"Whoa," Stiles said. "Unlocked?"

Derek started to talk over him so Stiles raised his voice. Of course Derek couldn't hear anything Stiles shouted, but Dad could.

"Stiles," he said in that tone that said Stiles was trying his patience. "You're the one who insisted we explain everything to Derek and Melissa as a matter of urgency. Give us a chance to do it."

"But that was before I knew Derek helped you 'unlock' memories! What the hell, Dad? What memories?"

"You already noticed I'm a spark. I figured the rest was kind of unimportant."

"Wait," Derek said, looking freaked out. "Stiles is here? He's in the room?"

"He is," Peter said, smirking. Yeah, Stiles had no idea what that was about.

"And he can hear everything?"

"He can."

"I want details. The wendigo. His name. His address. The location of his food locker."

Stiles held his hands over his heart in appreciation. Dad did not look pleased though.

"It's okay, Daddio," Stiles said happily. "Tell Derek thank you but I'm sure Scott and the rest of the pack would have taken care of it by now. Scott might be squeamish when it comes to killing but there's no way Malia didn't avenge me."

Dad looked at Peter, Peter looked at Dad, and then they both turned to look at Derek.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Derek asked, crossing his arms belligerently.

"Know what?" Stiles asked as doubt entered his mind. "Scott found me, didn't he?"

"Scott found you," Peter said, glancing at Dad is if he was unsure whether to explain.

"He let the wendigo walk away," Dad added in a tired voice.

"And when I collected the jeep he was more concerned about being a car down than the fact that his best friend had just died," Derek added. He gave Scott's mom a sad look. "Sorry, Mel."

"He was different," Melissa said, blinking back the tears of her grief. "I'm sure Stiles noticed it."

"I did. It was gradual, but he changed."

Peter repeated what Stiles had said and Melissa nodded quickly.

"Ever since he got that stupid alpha spark."

"Yeah, it's like everything that made Scott Scotty somehow got sucked away."

Again Peter passed on Stiles's words.

"Is that possible?" Melissa asked, taking his words literally. "Can an alpha spark corrupt someone so thoroughly?"

"Maybe," Peter said slowly, clearly running ideas through his mind. "I have a few books I can search for answers."

"But it may be irrelevant," Dad said with a shrug. "I'm still untangling the memories but there's a chance Scott won't ever become an alpha—maybe not even a werewolf—if we make the right change in the time line at the right moment."

"So how do we choose the moment?" Melissa asked, clearly on board with the idea of keeping her son out of the supernatural shit show that was Beacon Hills.

"I have ways of… auditing the timeline," Dad admitted, "but first I want to work on recovering a few more of my memories." He turned to Derek. "Would you mind helping me again?"

"I don't mind," Derek said with a small nod, "but maybe Peter would be more helpful. He has far more experience when it comes to that sort of thing."

Interestingly Peter blushed. Stiles grinned and got right in the man's face.

"Stiles," Dad growled in a tone that suggested he'd been spending way too much time with werewolves.

"What?" Stiles asked, trying to act innocent. "I'm just testing my range."

"How can he die and still be so annoying?" Derek asked, correctly guessing that Stiles was deliberately trying to annoy people. But the words from his mate's mouth hurt, no matter how true they were.

"Tell him that's no way to speak about his mate," Stiles snapped.

Peter grinned. Dad harrumphed in exasperation. "Do you really want me to tell him that?"

"Yes," Stiles said, acting confident even though fear was swirling through his non-corporeal gut.

"Tell me what?"

"That you and he are destined mates."

"Stiles?" Derek asked in that flat tone that was becoming seriously fucking annoying. "Stiles is my mate? Mine?"

"No need to sound so fucking happy about it," Stiles said sarcastically. Peter's grin faded as he interpreted whatever emotions were filtering into Derek's scent.

When Derek started to laugh, the sound beyond hysterical and edging into insanity, Peter moved to wrap his nephew in his arms.

"Stiles," Derek whispered, swearing under his breath before hugging his uncle hard. "Could my life be any more ridiculous? A pedophile, a serial killer, a bounty hunter, and a fucking ghost. My love life fucking sucks."

"We're going to go for a run," Peter said, herding Derek toward the back door. "We'll only be an hour or so. We'll grab breakfast on the way back."

"Okay, yeah, extra bacon."

"Dad—" Stiles said in a warning tone that cut off with a single look from his dad.

"Stow it, kid. I'm a spark. And even if I wasn't, my health is not your concern."

"But—"

"Nope, I'm not taking tips for a long healthy life from the son who got eaten by a wendigo before his twenty-third birthday."

"That was one time!" Stiles yelled, not really sure if he was overreacting or not. What about all the good he'd done? "I outsmarted a kanima and his creepy master. I identified the darach. I rescued Derek more than once." He took a deep breath despite not needing to actually breathe in this form. "What about that time I trapped the Inuk-ite? Or the harpies I vanquished at my and Derek's we—"

He stopped his rant mid-word and turned to his father.

"Yours and Derek's wedding," Dad said, nodding sadly. "I remember it too."

"But we're not married. We're barely friends. Why is the memory of our…lives together…" He swallowed and rubbed his head despite being in spirit form and essentially doing neither of those things. "Why is it so clear in my head?"

"Because sparks remember all of the timelines, son."

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"It means this is not the original timeline."

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

"Someone changed the original timeline?" Melissa asked, struggling to keep up with the side of the conversation she actually could hear. " _This_ is the alternate?"

"I think so." Noah rubbed a hand down his unshaven face. "I'm still trying to untangle the memories but there does seem to be two distinct timelines for me to remember." He glanced at an empty space that was probably Stiles's location. "I suspect you remember now because dying broke the siphoning spell and you're gradually regaining your memories of both timelines."

"So Stiles is remembering the same things?" Melissa asked.

"We're both…" Noah shook his head in exasperation at something Stiles had apparently said. "We're both struggling to put everything in order. I'm hoping Peter will be able to help me when he gets back."

"If Peter is the one with more experience doing the"—she held her fingers wide apart and made an alarming stabbing motion—"why did he wait for Derek to arrive?"

"The process occasionally skims ideas and thoughts from the werewolf's mind as well as the recipient's. I suspect Peter was trying to protect me from knowing that he's my mate."

"I guess that explains where he slept last night."

Noah shrugged.

"As long as you're happy?"

"I am," Noah said with a fond smile on his face. "In the original timeline we met when he was twenty-three. Claudia was so wonderful about it. As if she knew my mate would one day come along even though I never told her." He gave Melissa another one of those sad shrugs. "The chances of meeting our soulmates are so infinitesimal that it never even occurred to me to warn her, and yet, when I met Peter she helped me understand that it was okay to love him."

"I miss her," Melissa said, remembering the woman who'd been her friend before she'd fallen ill and forgotten everyone, her son included.

"So do I," Noah admitted. "In the original timeline she and Peter had been good friends."

"That's a little hard to imagine," Melissa admitted. "Scott hates Peter so much that it kind of feels like we're talking about two different people."

"I suppose in a way, we are," Noah agreed with a slow nod. "In the original timeline Peter never lost his family, never got burned, never killed his niece."

"Never tried to kill my son." Melissa gave Noah a sad look. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. It actually happened in this timeline so you have every right to be angry."

"Do you remember Scott in the original timeline?"

"I'm sorry, Mel. I don't, but with Peter's help I'll try after breakfast."

"Thanks. I'm glad Stiles is okay." She laughed softly. "Well okay-ish."

Noah laughed. "Stiles just described it the exact same way."

Melissa grinned, glad for the small reprieve from the painful emotions that had been riding her the past couple days. She stood up to make another cup of tea but her phone rang before she could make it to the kettle. She didn't have a shift at the hospital today, but the last thing she wanted was to get called to cover a shift for a sick workmate.

But she rushed to answer it when she saw the caller ID.

"Scott?"

~*~

Peter had tried to keep up with Derek as they ran through the preserve, but once his alpha had dropped to all fours and turned into a wolf—leaving torn clothes all over the place—Peter had followed at a more sedate pace.

It wasn't until he was almost there that he realized where his alpha was headed.

"I salvaged as much as I could," he said, dropping the pile of torn clothes into Derek's lap. He was sitting on the dirt and leaning against the side of the nemeton, staring into the forest as if the answers were just beyond the treeline. "Maybe next time you might consider undressing before you wolf out."

Derek glared at him but sifted through the material until he found his only slightly chewed jeans and then pulled them on.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," Derek said, briefly forcing a very fake smile onto his face, "but do I have a choice?"

"You're the alpha. You always have a choice."

"Cut the bullshit," Derek said with a roll of his eyes. "We both know being alpha is more about protecting my pack than getting my own way."

"True, but since I'm your only beta right now, I'll give you a bit of leeway."

Derek smiled—genuinely this time—and pressed a hand to his own chest. "It's nice to have a real pack bond again."

"You didn't have one with Scott?"

"Never," Derek admitted with a tiny shrug. "It wasn't easy to accept a non-Hale alpha but I got there eventually. I'm not sure why the bond never grew."

"I just assumed the lack of bond was because the kid dislikes me, but maybe there's more to it. There's not much in our library in regards to true alphas—well nothing that seems to fit the way it happened with Scott—but it wouldn't hurt to see if I can find some more information. I still have a few old contacts." Peter hesitated. "Do you want to talk about Stiles?"

"No," Derek said stubbornly. He shook his head and then despite his words asked in a quiet voice, "Why did I never notice? Shouldn't I have gotten a boner or something the first time I met him?"

"Only if you're living in a fiction novel," Peter teased. "Perhaps I should review your reading lists, my dear alpha."

"You know what I mean," Derek lamented tiredly.

"Yeah, I do," Peter said, dropping the teasing tone. "I just… Maybe whatever Deaton was doing to Stiles affected the way you perceived him. I don't think Stiles noticed until after he was dead."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

~*~

Noah was getting ready to grab his son—moving around an artifact was actually a pretty handy way of corralling his hyperactive offspring—and leave the kitchen so that Melissa could have some privacy with her phone call until he heard the urgency in Scott's voice.

"Mom, something's wrong."

"What happened?"

"I don't know exactly. I've… It's so weird. I've been feeling off for days. Kind of like I used to feel the first day of the flu when I was human. Liam and Malia too. A few hours ago they both collapsed and before I could get to them I passed out too."

"Are the others okay? The rest of the pack?"

"The rest of the pack?" Scott asked, sounding confused. "Oh, shit. Where's Stiles? I don't…" He stayed quiet too long, only the heavy sound of his breathing making it through the phone connection.

"Scott?"

"Mom, nothing's making sense," Scott said in a surprisingly whiny tone. "It's… Oh, wait. Malia? You awake? Malia?"

"What?" Malia asked in what was clearly an extremely grumpy tone—even by Malia standards.

"Mal, do you know where we are?"

"What?"

"Where are we?"

"In a motel?" she asked, not sounding sure at all.

"Scott?" Melissa shouted several times into the phone before she got her son's attention.

"Mom?"

"Scott," Melissa said, turning her gaze to Noah in a clear appeal for help. "It's okay, honey. We'll figure this out. Can you see anything out the windows?"

Noah could barely hear sounds through the phone, even with his spark working.

"Trees, a parking lot, a couple of cars."

"Scott's phone has GPS," Stiles said, flailing his arms toward Melissa in what Noah assumed was his son insisting he pass on the information. Noah dutifully did what his son demanded.

"Scott, can you check your GPS coordinates?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, sounding relieved. "Stiles usually handles this sort of thing, but I don't know where he is. Mom, I need to find him."

"It's okay," Melissa said, glancing worriedly at Noah. "Stiles is here in Beacon Hills."

"Oh, okay, that's a relief. Last I remember he was doing research on something, somewhere." If Noah had to guess he'd say Scott was glancing around the motel room as if he'd never seen it before. "Okay, at least my pack is safe."

"What about Alec?"

"Alec?" Scott asked in a high-pitched squeak. "Fuck how did I forget about Alec?"

"I don't know, honey," Melissa said in the calming tone Noah had heard her use with patients in high-stress situations. "He's not the only other wolf in your pack."

Stiles started naming and describing the newer members of the McCall pack. They were mostly omegas they'd collected after their packs had been attacked by humans terrified of the unknown or wiped out by hunters taking advantage of the confusion and distrust surrounding the whole supernatural reveal. Noah told them to Melissa who repeated them to Scott. Fortunately, according to Stiles, the others had split off into two smaller groups several weeks ago so they weren't staying at the motel where Scott, Malia and Liam had gotten sick.

By the time Noah was finished checking in with the others who thankfully seemed unaffected, Liam had woken—also as confused and disoriented as Malia and Scott—and figured out how to check the GPS co-ordinates of Scott's phone.

"Ask him what color his eyes are," Stiles ordered.

"Why?" Noah asked, pointing to Stiles's location so that Melissa knew who he was talking to.

"I have a theory," Stiles said. "Can you just ask him, please?"

"Fine." Noah turned to Melissa. "Can you ask Scott what color his eyes are, Mel?"

She didn't seem as startled by the question as Noah had been.

"Mom," Scott answered, his voice soft and perhaps a little bit frightened. "They're not red anymore."

"Stiles has a theory," Melissa said, correctly interpreting the reason behind Stiles's question. "Come home and we'll figure it out. Wait! Are you okay to drive?" It was clear that Melissa wanted her son to head home immediately but not at the expense of other road users' safety.

"We'll drive to the next town and grab something to eat first," Scott said, sounding more like himself and clearly trying to balance their safety between staying where they'd gotten sick and rushing home immediately. "Once I'm sure we're okay to drive we'll head back to Beacon Hills."

"Okay, I'll meet you at home."

"Love you, Mom."

Melissa seemed surprised, but smiled and returned the sentiment before she hung up and turned to Noah.

"So is it good weird or bad weird that Scott was less weird than the weird he's been since becoming an alpha?"

"That is a lot of weird," Stiles said with a happy chuckle.

"It might even make a bit of sense," Noah said, glancing at Stiles when his son nodded in agreement. "We don't have all the details, but our current theory is that Deaton was siphoning Stiles's power to keep his spark suppressed. It seems likely by Scott's change in eye color that Deaton was pouring that energy into Scott."

"You think that's how he became a true alpha?"

"It fits the evidence we have so far," Noah said, falling back on his training. Until they had solid proof it really was just a theory.

"But if it was Stiles's power, why didn't it stop the moment he died?"

"Again, it's just a theory," Noah hedged, trying to ignore all of the points Stiles was making as he started to pace back and forth, apparently not noticing the way he passed through the chair in his path. "Druidic magic relies heavily on rituals and artifacts. Deaton probably did a spell to siphon the power and when he realized it was too much for him to handle did another spell to filter some of it into Scott. Stiles died suddenly and unexpectedly so it's possible Deaton didn't have time to stop either of the spells before the backlash knocked him on his ass and the filtering into Scott continued until he had nothing left to give."

"You think Deaton's dying?"

"Probably dead," Noah said, trying not to let his satisfaction leak onto his expression. He had a couple of memories from the original timeline of Deaton as being pretty powerless, even by druidic standards. He was the only one who'd benefitted from the changed timeline. Well right up until Stiles died and Deaton's own magic destroyed him. "Now that we know where Scott, Malia, and Liam were staying I'll check the surrounding areas for reports of a dead man fitting Deaton's description."

"But none of that explains why Malia and Liam also lost consciousness."

Noah turned to his son, raised an eyebrow, and waited for that incredible intellect to connect the dots. Some days it was nice to just leave the hard thinking to someone else. Of course Stiles was mumbling so fast and pacing so furiously that Noah couldn't help but tune back in.

He frowned when he realized all of that back and forth argument with himself was because Stiles felt the explanation was "too simple."

"Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one," Noah said, not even sure Stiles heard him over his own thoughts. Noah turned to Melissa. "Stiles is a very powerful spark. It's possible that even after filtering most of his power into making Scott an alpha there was so much left over that Deaton needed additional outlets. Malia and Liam are both so much stronger than they would be under other circumstances, and while there are plausible explanations for their personalities, they both tend to be blindly loyal to Scott and completely self-absorbed when it comes to everything else."

"That's a rather blunt summation," Melissa said with a grimace, "but not untrue."

"It's very possible it was Deaton making sure he had control over Scott's closest advisors. It may even explain why Scott had pulled away from the friendship he shared with Stiles." Noah tilted his head toward Stiles again. "My son has other half-baked theories." Noah closed his eyes against his son's non-corporeal pacing. "But that's what we've got right now."

"And you'll know more when Peter does his claw thing?"

"Hopefully," Noah said, sending his spark out to see if he could sense his mate's whereabouts.

"And you'll fix the timeline?"

"If I can," Noah said, trying not to promise anything he couldn't follow through on. It was kind of ironic that Melissa wouldn't remember anything if he succeeded and would remember a promise only if he broke it. Time travel was such a fucking headache.

No wonder most sparks didn't bother messing with it.

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

Peter was nervous as hell.

"You don't have to do this," Noah whispered, obviously sensing Peter's hesitance.

"Do you really want me wandering around inside your head?"

Noah raised an eyebrow. "You know I'll be in there too, don't you?"

"Yeah," Peter admitted, glancing around the room as if the answer to his dilemma lay in the mismatched knickknacks. "I just… You probably have a lot of personal memories."

Noah grinned softly, his voice dropping an octave lower. "I do."

Yeah, that was kind of the problem. Noah seemed comfortable sharing those memories with Peter. It was Peter who kind of didn't want to know. He didn't want to run through a whole heap of happy memories of Noah and his wife together. Or the grief he experienced when he lost his wife, or the days with his son as they rebuilt their lives together, especially when they covered the years Peter spent burned and locked in his own mind.

It was cowardly, but Peter didn't want to know how happy his mate had been without him.

"Do you trust me?" Noah asked.

Peter laughed softly. "I shouldn't."

Noah grinned as if that was an affirmative which, yeah, it probably was.

"I can't promise we won't find some horrifying memories I'm not aware of." Peter figured that was fair enough since the missing memories were why they were doing this. "But I have some I want you to see."

Peter was intrigued—he'd always been a sucker for a mystery—and he'd always trusted his mate, even when Noah had considered him nothing more than a criminal. Noah apparently noticed his capitulation because he reached for his hand and urged him to his feet.

"We're going to do this somewhere more comfortable than a wooden chair in the middle of my living room." He turned to Derek. "Can you monitor our heart rates from down here?"

"Of course," Derek agreed easily.

"We should be fine," Noah said to the room at large. Stiles didn't look convinced but that might be because his artifact was currently located far away from Noah's bedroom. "I'm not a fragile human, son, despite what we were led to believe. I'll be more aware this time around."

"Fine," Stiles said in a grumpy tone. "I'll just stay down here and talk at people who can't hear me."

Noah scratched the side of his jaw and narrowed his eyes in what Peter was beginning to realize was a type of a warning for his son to behave. He'd probably used it since the kid was a toddler.

"I might be able to tweak the artifact so that anyone holding it can hear you. Will that help?"

"Daddio," Stiles said, holding his hands over his heart and grinning wider than Peter had ever seen, "that would improve my quality of life, well death-like life, immensely."

"No promises," Noah said, perhaps doubting his abilities just a touch. He'd always been the "man in charge" since Peter had known him, but the events of the past couple days would rattle anyone's confidence. Unfortunately the cornerstone of a spark's magic was their belief that they could do it.

Noah picked up the orb-shaped artifact, held it in his hands a few tense moments, and then smiled.

He handed it to Derek who frowned when all he heard was silence.

Noah rolled his eyes and turned to the non-corporeal version of his son. "You have to actually talk if we want to test this."

"Oh, yeah, sorry, that's…yeah… That's kinda necessary, I guess."

"I can hear him," Derek said, his tone still flat but his lips quirking into a smile. "It's good to hear you, Stiles."

"It's good to be heard," Stiles said, grinning like a madman.

"Okay," Noah said, reaching for Peter's hand again and leading him toward the stairs. "Just remember you two are monitoring us for any problems."

"Of course," Stiles said, moving closer as if that would keep his words private. "Thanks, Dad."

"Do yourself a favor and don't overwhelm him with details. You remember how stubborn he can be when it comes to that sort of stuff."

"Good point," Stiles said, still grinning.

Peter kept his mouth shut until they reached the bedroom. "I didn't realize you knew Derek that well."

Noah gave him a sad smile. "There's quite a lot you don't know about me at the moment."

He urged Peter onto the bed and then joined him. They were sharing a pillow and facing each other, close enough to kiss if they were so inclined. Peter wanted to pinch himself because he absolutely knew this had to be some sort of fever dream. Not even in his wildest moments had he dared to imagine something like this.

Noah reached for his hand and lifted it to the back of his neck.

"Thank you for doing this."

Peter had no idea what to say. He nodded and let his claws extend until they pressed against Noah's flesh.

"See you on the inside," Noah said with a soft laugh.

Peter couldn't help but grin as he carefully pressed his claws into the back of his mate's neck and closed his eyes.

It was disorienting at first. The other times he'd done this had been with werewolves. The images he'd seen had been disorganized, flashing past in broken sequences, so it was almost startling to find himself in a huge room filled with old fashioned, metal filing cabinets.

"Not what you expected?" Noah asked, suddenly beside him.

"Not at all," Peter admitted. "I knew you were an organized guy, but this might even be a little creepy."

Noah chuckled happily. Goddess the man was sexy.

"It's possible I take the whole concept of 'compartmentalization' a little too far," Noah admitted, "but it helped me climb back onto the sobriety wagon after Claudia died."

"Of course," Peter said, trying to make sure that his own feelings at the mention of Noah's dead wife didn't leak into their connection.

"Most of this room is work related. Day-to-day procedural stuff, the knowledge I gained from experience and training, and cases I don't want to remember unless I absolutely have to."

Peter nodded. That made a heap of sense.

"This door over here," Noah said, urging Peter toward it, "is less organized."

He opened the door and Peter stood on the threshold to look into the room. It was filled with hundreds of old fashioned TV's spread around the large room and stacked haphazardly on top of each other. Peter watched as snippets of memory played over and over on each screen.

"I think these are the memories that define who I am in this timeline. Every moment that had an effect on shaping the person I've become, good and bad, old and new, anything that affects the way I think and alters my beliefs."

" _This_ timeline?" Peter asked, wondering why Noah would phrase it that way.

Noah pulled the door closed and urged Peter down a large hallway. There was a giant viewing window off to the left, kind of like the ones they'd once used in maternity wards when dads would come to view their babies. But instead of newborns the room was filled with swirling colors and discordant noise. As the colors writhed and twisted the occasional picture emerged, scenes from Noah's life that seemed to be part of the lost memories Noah needed to untangle.

They didn't stop and Peter was happy to follow his mate to the other end of the hallway. This door had an ethereal quality to it, as if it wasn't quite there. Noah pushed it open to reveal a very similar room to the other one. Old fashioned TVs were stacked high but in this room some were almost transparent, others were dark as if they had no memories to play. Only a few showed scenes as clearly as they did in the other room.

"These are my memories of the original timeline."

"Original?" Peter asked, his heart-rate kicking up considerably as he realized what Noah was saying. "Someone already changed it?"

"Yeah," Noah said, glancing around the room as if he was trying to find something specific. He made a happy noise and reached for Peter's hand. Peter was fascinated by the way some of the TVs started to flicker to life as if Noah was recalling memories just by being in there. He was still glancing around the room when they apparently reached the memory Noah wanted to share.

Peter turned his attention to the flickering screen, smiling as the picture cleared to show a very handsome, somewhat younger Noah Stilinski dressed in a tuxedo. He looked nervous but he smiled widely when a woman and young child moved into view.

"Daddy!"

"Mischief," Noah said happily, hugging the child to him even as the woman tried to protect Noah's tuxedo from being dirtied by Stiles's shiny black shoes. The kid was probably five or six and looked adorable in his miniature tuxedo. He talked a mile a minute, his voice rising with his excitement as Noah nodded along. When Stiles finally wound down, Noah leaned over and pressed a kiss to the woman's cheek. "Thanks for coming, Claudia."

"Where else would I be when my best friend gets married?"

"You are amazing. Do you know that?"

The woman smiled and winked. "I like to think so."

Noah started to look nervous again. "Has he arrived yet?"

Claudia laughed as if Noah had said something very funny.

"Of course he's here," she finally said as if Noah was being stupid. "We spent months planning this wedding. There's no way he'd miss the big day."

"He was genuinely happy when you offered to help."

"I'm glad," Claudia said with a wide smile. "He's a good guy and you know we're friends."

"I like him," Stiles said, grinning that goofy smile Peter knew from the only timeline he himself remembered. "He buys me peanut butter cups."

"Bribery," Noah muttered affectionately.

"True," Claudia said, apparently not upset, "but effective."

Noah laughed again, and Claudia leaned over to lift Stiles out of his arms.

"Now straighten your tie, Deputy Stilinski. It's time to get you happily married."

"Yes, ma'am."

Peter glanced at Noah, confused as to why he was being shown this particular memory. It didn't even make any sense. Who would Noah have divorced Claudia to marry?

"Just watch for one more minute," Noah said, squeezing his hand in reassurance. "I promise it'll all make sense."

The scene changed, following the Stilinski family into a very tastefully decorated reception area. It was obviously set up for a wedding but with none of the over-the-top crassness that Peter loathed. In fact Peter found the choices of color and tone and the various decorations very appealing. If he were to ever get married he'd probably make very similar choices.

The "camera" followed Noah as he walked down the aisle, seeing Claudia to a seat next to Natalie Martin with a tiny—and possibly still terrifying—version of Lydia Martin perched on her lap. Stiles barely noticed her, his gaze fixated on someone just out of shot.

Noah tugged the kid's hand gently and moved toward the front of the room. He showed Stiles where to stand, straightened his tie again, and greeted the officiant waiting to begin the ceremony. When the soft strains of a harp began the camera zoomed in on Noah's face to show the tears filming his eyes as he caught sight of the person he was about to marry. Peter felt a stab of jealousy so deep that he nearly gasped out loud from the pain.

"Look," Noah said softly, drawing Peter's attention back to the screen that now slowly panned across the crowd. They were all werewolves, their eyes flaring as they each smiled at the camera before averting their gaze. Derek and Cora, Laura and Talia and her mate and almost every other member of Peter's family sat in the seats reserved for the bride's family.

Peter was still confused until the camera finally turned toward the entry.

He gasped when he saw a young girl—was that Malia?—wearing a tastefully pretty dress and carrying a basket of flower petals, but it was the person, dressed in a suit that contrasted beautifully with Noah's, that had his heart beating hard enough to break a rib.

"I'm the bride?" Peter asked incredulously.

Noah snickered and pulled him into an embrace. "You insisted on walking down the aisle. I always knew you enjoyed the attention, especially when it gave you a chance to annoy Talia. She wanted a more traditional werewolf ceremony. You insisted on the human kind."

"We got married?" Peter asked, feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

"And had a life together," Noah said, sweeping his arm out to indicate the other TVs that were flickering on and showing other memories they would have shared. Many of them were of the two of them, but they also included family days with Claudia and Stiles. "Claudia adored you. She died from fronto-temporal dementia in this timeline as well, but the onset was much later. She lived long enough to see Stiles and Derek get married and adopt a baby girl. And she died with her best friend—you, not me—and her son beside her. I regret not being there—ironically for a similar reason I missed it in the other timeline—but at least she had you and Stiles with her."

"Noah," Peter said, uncertain what to say but feeling like he needed to say something. "I… I…"

"I'll fix it." Noah's words were filled with his determination. "I promise we'll figure out what happened and then we'll put everything and _everyone_ back where we're supposed to be."

Peter could do nothing but nod and hug his mate harder.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

"Did we miss anything important while we were out running," Derek asked the shiny rock in his hand. Yeah, this was just ridiculous but somehow perfectly fitting for the weird-ass shit show that was his life.

"Only if you think discovering that this isn't the original timeline is important," Stiles said, sounding somehow like they were talking on the phone rather than in the same room.

"Are you whispering in my ear?"

"Yep," Stiles said with a soft laugh. "I may also be sitting on your lap."

"Stiles," Derek said on a tired groan. "I distinctly remember your dad telling you not to overwhelm me with details."

"True, but he also wasn't married to you for more than a decade."

"Huh?" Derek asked, trying to hide how appealing the idea was. "You're messing with me, right?"

"I am," Stiles admitted, "but only about the part where I'm sitting on your lap. I don't really have that much control over my ghostly self and it would just be totally weird to like fall right through you."

That was a disturbing image but Derek shoved it aside to concentrate on more important things.

"And the 'married for over a decade' thing?"

"Oh, yeah, in the original timeline that's totally true. We even adopted a kid; named her Abigail Claudia Hale."

Derek bit his lip, unsure how to react to so few words that held so much information.

"Claudia after my mom, obviously. And we stole 'Abigail' from Laura. She was totally pissed about it—if I wasn't so _sparkly_ I would have been terrified—but then she had a boy so all was forgiven."

"I find that hard to believe."

"True," Stiles said, laughing happily. "Laura certainly could hold a grudge, but she always had a soft spot when it came to me, especially after I stopped a creepy school teacher from getting her metaphorical claws into you."

"You're talking about Kate Argent?"

"Yeah, we didn't realize she was hunter until she came back and tried to set your house on fire. Dad had already set the wards around the Hale mansion to nullify mountain ash and to bounce back anything thrown at the house will ill intent."

"My family escaped?" Derek asked, barely able to breathe.

"Yup, and that bitch burned to death on your front lawn. Your mom had a couple of human visitors at the time—she was running for mayor if I remember correctly—so Dad had to fabricate a plausible explanation about Kate being so insanely obsessed with you that she chose to show her undying love by committing suicide on your front lawn. Of course that meant it got picked up by the national media and then every Argent and Argent-adjacent hunter converged on Beacon Hills. A couple of them disappeared, never to be heard from again, including Gerard—I suspect that was Peter's doing. He always was a horrifically efficient left hand and Dad would have happily fed the bodies to the nemeton. He was always very protective of his family which very much included the Hales."

Derek was just about to suggest Stiles stop talking and take a breath—so much for not overwhelming him with details—but then he realized that in a non-corporeal form Stiles had no need to breathe. He could literally talk non-stop. Derek opened his fingers and looked at the artifact balanced on his palm.

"Don't you dare put that down," Stiles said, apparently able to read his intent. "That'd be as rude as hanging up on me."

"I do that all the time," Derek teased. It wasn't really true, well not in the past few years, but it would be kind of fun to hear Stiles's reaction.

"Don't do it now," Stiles said, suddenly very serious, his voice sounding shaky. Derek immediately regretted teasing him. "I remember both timelines. I remember loving you in both of them. Please don't give up on me yet."

"Never," Derek said, even before he could think through the implications of that admission. "I may only remember this timeline, but I would never give up on you. I should have known you're my mate. Even when you're driving me crazy I still want to be around you."

"Okay," Melissa said, startling them both with the realization she was still in the room, "I'm going to head home. Scott, Liam and Malia will be back in town a few hours from now, and the rest of the pack won't be far behind. And Chris's plane lands later tonight. Unfortunately I suspect they'll all be squatting at my house. May as well go figure out where to put them."

"The pack can use the loft," Derek said, digging the keys out of his pocket. "I haven't been there in a few years, but there should be enough room to fit the pack comfortably. Power and water are still connected."

"Thanks," Melissa said gratefully, snatching the keys before Derek could have a chance to change his mind. "I know it's cliché but I really do prefer my orderly life over the chaos of having a wolf pack living underfoot. And I haven't seen Chris in months so it will be nice to catch up without all those werewolf noses butting into my business."

Derek took that as confirmation that Chris and Melissa had more than just a friendship between them. Melissa grabbed her bag, took a step toward the door, and then turned back.

"But what about you, Derek? Now that you're an alpha again, won't having another pack in your space be… ah… problematic?"

"It'll be fine. I'll probably stay here with Noah and Peter and my mate."

Melissa smiled. "I'm glad you boys finally figured it out. It was getting painful to watch."

Derek grinned and held out the artifact. "Stiles wants to talk to you."

He had no idea what his mate said to Melissa but she nodded, smiled, and wiped away a few stray tears.

"Love you too, kiddo."

She handed the artifact back, gave Derek a happy smile, and then left the house.

"What did you say to her?" Derek asked, forgetting for the moment that it was probably none of his business.

"I told her the names of her grandchildren, and I might have mentioned their extraordinary, but still very human, archery skills."

"Allison?" Derek asked, unable to hide the awe in his voice.

"Yeah," Stiles said with a soft chuckle. "Peter never got burned, never went insane, never bit Scott, and so when Scott met Allison they only had to deal with the usual teenage stuff and not the Romeo and Juliet bullshit tragedy they lived in this life."

Derek breathed out a soft sigh. "We really need to figure out how to restore the original timeline."

"Amen to that."

~*~

Noah could stay all day watching the memories of the life he and Peter had built together, but he was conscious of how much energy it took for a werewolf to hold the connection stable. They had time. They could take a break and come back to in a few days.

And now that he understood his spark much better Noah also had the option of safely auditing the timeline to help fill in the blanks.

"Come on, husband," Noah said, accidentally falling into the rhythm they'd shared in the original timeline. "Time to go back."

"Is it weird that I'd rather stay?"

"Probably," Noah said with a soft laugh, "but that makes two of us, so we can be weird together."

Peter laughed softly and let the connection fade. His claws withdrawing from Noah's neck felt strange as hell, but now that he was actively aware of his spark he used just a tiny bit of energy to speed up the healing. He opened his eyes to see his husband staring at him with wonder in his eyes.

"You really loved me," he said, perhaps not realizing how much emotion he poured into that simple statement. Even before this timeline had fucked everything up Peter had been closed-off emotionally and rather difficult to read—legacy of a sister who considered her left hand a necessary but distasteful part of werewolf life and therefore unworthy of her time—but right now his emotions were obvious and raw and so very fragile.

"I loved you then and I love you now."

"You barely know me," Peter denied softly.

"I remember more of our life together in the original timeline, and it explains so much about you in this timeline as well."

"I'm not really a good match for the county Sheriff," Peter said, smiling wryly. "I'm not exactly a law abiding citizen."

"As it turns out, neither am I," Noah admitted softly. "Not in the human sense at least."

"Care to explain?" Peter asked.

"Human laws work for humans," Noah said, trying to compress into a few words the complexity of a situation they both lived. "It's kind of a level playing field for them. But it doesn't work that way for supernaturals. Even if humans had prisons strong enough to hold a werewolf, they still wouldn't be able to contain a druid or a dragon shifter. And even if we could ward them to hell and back, the biggest risk is humans finding out our secret."

"Wait, dragon shifters actually exist?"

Noah laughed softly. "You were always gathering intel. 'Knowledge is power' you used to say whenever I teased you about it." Noah leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his husband's lips. "In the original timeline we knew two dragon shifters, but they were essentially an endangered species and very likely the last two on the planet. They chose not to procreate, saying it wouldn't be fair to leave their offspring in a world where they would never find a mate."

"No inter-species mating with dragon shifters?"

"Not with the heat they generate. Even with all my skills as a spark it was difficult to get close enough to communicate, and well, as you can imagine with temperatures high enough to mimic a volcano, technology wasn't an option either."

"I guess not," Peter said, storing the information away in that incredible brain. He looked ready to ask another question but Noah cut him off, for the moment. He knew his mate well and he was almost as dedicated to research as Stiles was.

"Anyway, my point is that supernatural laws and justice require a slightly more ruthless approach. It's why the hunters existed in the first place. Kate and Gerard and hunters like them corrupted the message—death was supposed to be the last option, not the first—but their function was to protect the humans from learning about the supernatural."

"I guess that makes sense," Peter said, clearly rolling information and ideas around in his mind. "Otherwise they could just expose us to the humans and have us all eradicated in a single generation."

"Yeah, it's not a comforting thought. I might be able to manipulate timelines, but Stiles went ahead and proved that one bad decision can get us killed."

"Sheriff?" Derek said from down stairs. "Stiles is claiming that it wasn't just _one_ bad decision that got him killed."

Noah laughed softly at the way his son squawked in outrage at the way Derek had passed on his message. He was clearly annoyed by the inference that it had been many bad decisions rather than what was very likely Stiles's detailed analysis of everything that had gone wrong and why.

"Anyway," Derek said, clearly ignoring Stiles's ranting, "Melissa called a few minutes ago to tell us that Scott found Deaton in a hotel room only a few minutes away from the hotel they'd stayed in a few days ago. He was unconscious but he'd set some sort of spell that Scott basically tracked to find him. They called an ambulance and followed it to the hospital. They're still waiting for the doctor to tell them what's going on."

"Did Mel know which hospital?"

"I wrote all of the details down," Derek said, "and at Stiles's insistence I also looked up the GPS coordinates for you."

"Perfect, thanks Derek. I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Did you have any luck untangling the memories?"

"We did," Noah said, grinning at the sleepy smile on his mate's face. "We still have a lot more work to do, but the two timelines are becoming clearer in my mind."

"Why do I get the impression that you're planning to go somewhere without me?"

Noah was caught between being thrilled that Peter could read his intentions as easily in this timeline as the other and being pissed that he wouldn't be able to tuck his exhausted husband into bed and keep him safe while he went to deal with a treacherous druid.

"I won't be long," Noah said, even knowing that it wouldn't have worked on Peter in either timeline.

"I can sleep in the car," Peter said, already pulling away from Noah's embrace and sitting up on the bed.

"I…um… wasn't planning on going by car," Noah admitted.

"You can fly now?" Peter asked in a sardonic tone.

"Maybe," Noah said, surprised as hell that he'd never tried it. "But I was thinking more along the lines of teleportation."

"Now that's my idea of travel," Peter said, grinning widely.

"It wasn't," Noah said, remembering all of the nasty side-effects that had left Peter unwilling to use it unless it had been a life-or-death emergency. "You always ended up vomiting afterward. The kickback for werewolves is disproportionately severe. We never did figure out why."

Peter raised an eyebrow, so much like he did in the timeline that Noah was nearly overwhelmed with memories of a much happier life for both of them.

"I can handle an upset stomach," Peter said. "Just teleport us straight into the bathroom first."

"Fine," Noah said. "I want to get there before Deaton dies and I know from experience that arguing with you can take hours."

Peter laughed softly. "Now I have proof we were married in the other timeline."

"Come on," Noah said, climbing off the bed and reaching for his mate's hand. "Just remember that I tried to protect you from it."

"Duly noted."

~*~

Scott was pacing the emergency room waiting area when the door to the men's bathroom opened and Sheriff Stilinski and Peter Hale both walked out. They headed straight for him.

"How did you… Where did you…"

"Not important right now," Sheriff Stlinski said, wrapping an arm around Peter's waist when the werewolf swayed unsteadily. "Do you know where Deaton is?"

"The doctors won't tell me anything." He glanced over to the other side of the large room to see Malia and Liam standing frozen in the doorway, coffee and snacks piled in their arms. Scott wasn't sure if they didn't want to interrupt or if they were simply scared by the appearance of two people they hadn't been expecting. They were still hours away from Beacon Hills and Scott had barely gotten off the phone from his mom a half hour ago.

"Did you give them Marin's details?"

Scott nodded. "I've also tried to call her myself, but she's not picking up."

"Looks like the uniform was a good choice," Peter said to the sheriff. "Should have grabbed one for myself."

Sheriff Stilinski rolled his eyes and told Peter, "Stay here with Scott. I'll find out what's going on."

"Ordinarily," Peter said, giving the sheriff a strangely affectionate look, "I'd argue until you capitulated, but I find myself rather…" Instead of finishing the sentence, Peter took two steps back and sank into the chair Scott had just vacated.

"Scott, can you stay with him?"

"Ah…sure," Scott said, wondering what the hell he'd missed. Last time he'd seen the sheriff he'd distrusted Peter as much as Scott did. He watched Stiles's dad approach the nurse's window and then turned to Peter. "Since when have you two been so…" He couldn't even think of an appropriate word to fit what he'd just seen.

"Chummy?" Peter asked with that familiar smirk that Scott really, _really_ hated.

"Whatever," Scott said, figuring it was close enough. "Since when?"

"Since we got married," Peter said, his smirk growing even wider. "Didn't Stiles tell you?" He tapped a finger against his chin. "Oh, yes, that's right. Stiles was too busy being eaten by a wendigo."

"He what? When?" Scott felt rage swell through him. He flashed his eyes at the beta wolf, demanding respect but all he got was another one of those smirks.

"Well isn't that an interesting color?"

Shit, yeah, he'd forgotten that he wasn't actually an alpha anymore. They'd been heading back to Beacon Hills in the hope of finding Deaton when they'd been sidetracked by the signal Deaton had been able to magically send to him.

"I must say," Peter said in a tone that he knew annoyed the fuck out of Scott, "I did not expect such a lovely shade of blue." He grinned. "You know, with your ridiculous no killing policy and all."

Scott took a deep breath and tried to think past the rage filling his mind to focus on the most important thing he needed to know. "What happened to Stiles?"

"Don't you remember?" Peter asked, seeming a little less arrogant, a little more worried.

"Whatever happened earlier today," Scott said, rubbing his forehead even though he didn't actually have a headache, "has left the past few months"—it was probably closer to years but he wasn't admitting that to Peter Hale—"fuzzy in my mind. Liam and Malia too. We were headed back home hoping to find some answers." He gave Peter a pleading look, no longer caring what the man thought of him. "Please just tell me what happened to Stiles."

"He preserved his soul in an artifact he _borrowed_ from me," Peter said, keeping his voice soft enough that humans would need to be right beside them to overhear. "He was planning on resurrecting himself the same way I did, but with his body having been eaten we're looking at other ways to remedy the situation."

"Like what?" Scott asked, always suspicious of Peter's motives. The werewolf never did anything that didn't benefit him in some way.

Peter shrugged. "Time travel, maybe."

"You can't time travel," Scott said irritably.

"No," Peter admitted with a smirk and a shrug, "I can't."

Geez, he hated this guy. He was also pretty sure the hatred was mutual.

"And what the fuck did you mean when you said you and the sheriff are married?"

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Alan Deaton looked like hell.

He was on a ventilator, the machine forcing his lungs to inflate, pushing air through a body that had very little chance of recovery. The recoil from the broken spell hadn't just hit him mentally. It had left him bruised and battered and looking like he'd been run over by a Mack truck.

"As you can see," the nurse said, still a little bit annoyed that Noah had insisted on seeing Deaton even after she'd patiently explained his near-death, unable-to-give-a-statement condition, "we've made him as comfortable as we can. The rest, unfortunately, is just a matter of time."

"Have you been able to contact his sister?"

"Not yet," the nurse said, softening her tone just a little.

"Alan and I have been friends for decades," he said. It was true in the other timeline at least. They had been friends, good friends in fact, which is possibly why his betrayal had angered Noah enough to not care that he could be dead in this timeline. Standing beside him at that moment brought many of the happier times they'd shared to the forefront of his mind. It might have even been a little surprising to realize how much of his family life had involved Alan Deaton. "Can I stay with him for a little while? His sister would appreciate knowing he's not completely alone."

"Okay," the nurse said, relenting on her family only stance. "Who's the kid in the waiting room?"

"Scott? Dark hair, crooked jaw?" The nurse nodded. "Alan has mentored him since he was a young teen. Scott regards him as a father figure, and he's the closest Alan has to a son of his own."

"And Alan's sister will confirm this?"

"Absolutely," Noah assured her

"Okay," the nurse said, "I'll list Scott as family. He can sit with Alan once you're ready to leave. I'm assuming you need to get back to your investigation."

"I do, yes," Noah said, nodding absently. "I'll only be a few minutes."

"Okay, I'll leave you to it."

"Is it all right to touch him? Hold his hand maybe?"

"That should be fine. Just stay on the left side, away from all the wires and machinery."

"Thanks."

Noah moved slowly, careful not to bump into any machinery or cause any disruption to the wires and tubes that were the only things keeping Alan Deaton alive.

Noah wrapped one hand around the bed rail to brace himself and then reached for Alan's hand. The connection was almost instantaneous. Unfortunately Alan sounded completely insane, rambling non-stop, shouting out, growling in frustration.

"Alan," Noah said silently, trying to remember how the fuck to speak telepathically. It wasn't exactly a skill he'd practiced recently. "Alan!"

"Noah?" a voice asked, echoing through the connection, the sound bouncing back and forth. "Noah, oh thank the goddess." Alan rambled a few more unintelligible sounds that seemed directed at himself and then started talking even faster. "It didn't work. You need to fix it. I wasn't strong enough. I'm so sorry. So, so sorry. Please, I need your help. It didn't work! It didn't work!"

The last three words echoed over and over, fading in and out as Noah sought to hold onto the connection.

"Alan," he said, trying to throw as much "sheriff" tone into his telepathic voice as he could muster. "Alan, you need to calm down. Tell me how to fix it. What did you change? What date do I need?"

"It didn't work. You need to fix it! It didn't work."

"Alan," Noah said, trying a different approach by using the tone he'd used when they'd been friends in another timeline. "I'm going to fix this. I just need you to tell me the date everything changed. Just give me the date and I'll fix everything. I promise."

"The date. There was a date, a day, a day we changed. I need the date."

Noah couldn't see Alan through their connection, but he felt certain the man was pacing back and forth in his own mind, maybe even tearing at his metaphorical hair in agitation. But since he seemed to be searching for the date they needed Noah didn't interrupt.

When Alan finally did find a date, he said it over and over and over before adding, "You're a spark. You can fix it. Noah, you just have to remember."

"It's okay, Alan," Noah said, unexpectedly feeling a heavy sympathy for the usually unflappable druid. "I already remember. I'm a spark and I'm going to fix it."

"Yes, you need to fix it," Alan said, sounding slightly calmer. "You need to fix it because it didn't work. It didn't work. I wasn't strong enough."

"Rest now, Alan. Scott will be here soon. He'll sit with you while I go fix it."

"Thank you," Alan said, sounding tired now that his agitation was winding down. "Thank you, Noah. I'm so sorry I let you down."

Noah nodded and broke the connection before he could let anger overwhelm him.

~*~

Peter was maybe regretting that he'd insisted on accompanying Noah—he hadn't been exaggerating about the travel sickness—until he saw the man's face as he came back into the waiting room. He looked completely shattered as he signaled for Scott to join him and then he disappeared back into Alan's room.

Whatever he'd learned from Alan Deaton had hurt him deeply.

"Peter?" Malia asked in a voice far more timid than the tone she usually used on him. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to support my mate, nothing more."

"Your mate?" she asked, apparently baffled by the concept of Peter having someone to love. "Does he know that?"

"He does," Peter said, trying to keep his tone neutral. This was probably more words than they'd exchanged in the last year in total.

"Do you know what happened to Deaton?"

"We think a spell he cast may have backfired when Stiles died."

"That can happen?" Liam asked, sounding skeptical. "He looked like he'd had the crap beaten out of him."

"Magic can do that if you're not prepared for the consequences."

"I'm never doing magic," Malia said, wrinkling her nose in distaste, ever the pragmatist.

"Is that what happened to Scott?" Liam crossed his arms belligerently as if he intended to disbelieve any explanation Peter might try to give despite asking the question.

"Noah thinks it's related," Peter said. "You noticed he's a spark, right?"

"Stiles's dad is a spark too?" Malia asked as if the concept had never occurred to her. "Stiles always assumed he got his skills from his mom."

"An understandable conclusion," Peter agreed.

"When did the sheriff realize he was a spark too?"

"A few hours after he learned of Stiles's death. The shock knocked a few memories loose and Derek helped him recover some more." Peter didn't bother to mention his part in Noah's recovery since he'd likely be accused of messing with the memories in some plot to advance his own nefarious agenda. If nothing else, Scott and Malia's accusations had always been consistent.

"I remember finding Stiles's body," Malia said, her face paling as if she was reliving the experience. "The wendigo was covered in blood and viscera and I didn't even care. It was like…" She struggled to find the words and turned to her packmate for help.

Liam grimaced but nodded in agreement. "It was like we blamed him for getting caught. Like we had no emotional attachment at him, to _anything_ at all."

"What he said," Malia agreed.

"But now?" Peter asked, feeling like his daughter was leading up to something.

"Now I want to go back and tear the wendigo apart with my bare hands. I don't think I'd even need to shift into my beta form."

"Same," Liam admitted. "Stiles has been a friend and mentor since I was first bitten. I don't understand how I could even forget for a moment how much he meant to me."

"He was the first guy I had sex with," Malia said, still apparently struggling with what topics were appropriate to discuss in public. "I loved him too…but, you know, like after that, not during. During I was too busy—"

"Noah thinks," Peter said, talking over his daughter and hoping like hell she would stop talking. He did not want to know anything about her sex life. "Noah thinks that maybe the spell Deaton was doing to make Scott an alpha overflowed onto the two of you as well. It would explain the loss of consciousness you all had this morning and your recovery from being emotionless automatons."

"You're saying Deaton did this to us?"

"We're not sure why," Peter said, not answering the question directly. He was pretty certain Noah's theory was solid, but casting aspersions when they had no real proof wasn't exactly a wise action, especially when it was the very thing he wished his daughter would stop doing when it came to him. "But Noah has recovered his spark and he plans to fix everything." Again he didn't bother with details. The last thing he needed was Liam doing a tantrum because he probably wasn't a werewolf in the original timeline.

"And that's why you're here with him?" Liam asked, the question tripping off his tongue like an accusation. "He's suddenly the most powerful and you want him for yourself. You're such a power-hungry slu—"

"You won't finish that sentence, Liam." Noah was suddenly there beside Peter, surprising the fuck out of three supernaturals who should have been able to detect his approach long before he was in hearing range. Liam seemed frightened enough to piss himself. At another time and under any other circumstances Peter might have gleefully listened to _Sheriff_ Stilinski lecture the young man on his manners, but it was clear that Noah was struggling to hold himself together. Peter moved into his embrace, shaking slightly in reaction when he felt the swirl of tightly controlled magic moving just under Noah's skin. "Malia, Scott has permission to sit with Deaton. I expect both of you to support him."

"Of course," Malia said, rolling her eyes when she realized Liam was too scared to speak.

Noah turned away from them, pressed a hand to the back of Peter's neck and encouraged him to press his face to his neck. "Sorry, baby," he whispered as the world around them changed with sickening speed. They landed in Noah's bathroom.

Peter spent the next five minutes retching miserably, but his mate stayed with him the entire time and didn't once turn away.

~*~

"They're back," Derek said, not sure how much Stiles could perceive of the world around him. "When you get your body back, do me a favor and never teleport me. Peter sounds miserable."

"Yeah, you never liked it much," Stiles said, sounding quite sure of that. "And it was pretty useless in battle situations. Can't fight and vomit at the same time."

"Thanks for the visual."

"Yeah, totally gross," Stiles said, laughing softly. He was quiet for a while. "Dad's vibrating he's so angry."

"With Peter?"

"What? No! Geez, how many times do I have to tell you they were married for—"

He cut off so suddenly that Derek glanced down at his hand to make sure he hadn't dropped the artifact without noticing. "Stiles?"

"I think," he said slowly, "I know what day the original timeline ceased."

"Is that relevant?" Derek asked. He'd never given time travel much thought but it seemed that knowing the day someone went back in time was less important than knowing _when_ they went back to.

"Maybe not," Stiles said, "but I suspect Dad learned something from Deaton. Something that seriously pissed him off. Fingers crossed that it's at least helpful information."

"Yes, I learned something helpful from Alan Deaton," Sheriff Stilinski said as he helped Peter down the stairs. Hell, his uncle looked like someone had taped him to an office chair and spun him in place until his eyes nearly exploded. "I know the date he went back to. The date everything changed."

"Are you going to share, Daddio?"

"Maybe later," Sheriff Stilinski said, touching Peter's pale face with such tender concern that Derek felt almost like he was intruding just witnessing it. "We need to eat and rest, maybe get a full night's sleep."

"So Deaton's going to be okay?"

"He won't make it through the night," the sheriff said in a tone devoid of all emotion.

"So we should go now," Stiles said urgently. "If it's the wrong date, at least we'll know, and you can interrogate him again."

"No," Sheriff Stilinski said tiredly. "The man is practically insane. If it's the wrong date we'll just fall back to plan B."

"Auditing the time line could take years," Stiles said, sounding frustrated. Derek got the impression he was pacing again.

"The irony of time travel, son, is that we have time to work on it."

"But I'm a ghost, Dad," Stiles said, heavy on the irony. "And I'll get to keep the long, boring memories of being a ghost. Please don't leave me like this for years."

"Enough with the melodrama," the sheriff said in a tired tone. "We have a date. We'll try that first."

"Excellent," Stiles said, clearly much happier despite the discussion not really changing anything the sheriff had planned.

"But first," Peter said, "we need food and sleep."

Derek's stomach rumbled right on cue and apparently halted whatever argument Stiles was about to make.

"When was the last time any of you ate something?" Stiles asked instead.

The silence was rather telling.

"Oh my god," Stiles said, launching into another rant. "I don't care if you are a spark, Dad. You need a keeper."

Fortunately Noah just laughed and asked, "Chinese, Indian or pizza?"

Peter seemed to pale even more when he mumbled, "Not pizza."

"Good point," Noah said, apparently responding to Peter's physical reaction rather than his words. "Steak and vegetables is probably a better choice. I'll call The Pepper Mill and get them to deliver."

Peter's eyes widened in surprise—it was his favorite restaurant in town and also the most expensive—but he didn't argue, not even when the sheriff used his own credit card.

Then again, if they were planning to repair the timeline a meal that expensive would probably never exist long enough to make it onto the sheriff's bank statement. They could essentially do whatever the hell they wanted and there would be no consequences.

Despite being the only one in the room who would definitely forget this timeline—or perhaps because of it—Derek found himself deeply uncomfortable with the idea.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

"It's been three days," Stiles said, complaining loudly enough for the occupants of the other bedroom to hear him.

"You can't blame them for wanting to reconnect," Derek said diplomatically. "It must have been awful for your dad to learn Peter was his mate and that Peter had known all these years. It seems pretty natural for him to want to make it up to him."

"I get that," Stiles said, sounding tired. "I just… I'm a ghost and my mate is right here too and I can't do anything about it."

"But I didn't spend torturous years knowing that and pining for you."

"Peter would be horrified by that description," Stile said, snickering softly. "He'd roll his eyes and use a snotty and dismissive tone to say 'I do not pine' like it's totally beneath him."

"I know," Derek said. "Why do you think I phrased it that way?"

Stiles laughed for a few moments and then sighed tiredly again. "I wonder why you never noticed me. I mean, aren't werewolves supposed to be good at that sort of thing?"

"You apparently know more about werewolves than I do," Derek said, no longer surprised at the irony, "maybe you can explain it."

"Deaton's spell is the obvious explanation," Stiles said. "I suspect it removed all of the markers of my supernatural-ness, but it may also have been my age when we met. I've read accounts of mates growing up together and the realization of it coming to them slowly over time. Or maybe your horrendous traumas in this timeline shut down that part of you or maybe you did it unconsciously yourself in a bid to keep me safe from what you considered your disastrous life."

"I can't tell you how _wonderful_ it is to hear my horrendous trauma summarized in such a succinct fashion."

"Oh, hey, sorry," Stiles said, sounding genuinely distressed. "I didn't mean to dismiss what you've been through in this timeline. I guess it's… I…"

"It's okay," Derek said, willing to accept Stiles's knee-jerk apology. The years since Paige's death weren't anything he wanted to talk about anyway.

"No, it's not okay," Stiles said vehemently. "I keep thinking it's going to be fixed and you'll forget and won't ever have to live through that, but that's not true. You're here, now, and you did go through that. It's cruel to dismiss it as never going to happen when it actually did happen to you. Whatever happens to the timelines, you still went through this and I am so sorry. God, Derek, I'm so, so sorry."

"I wish I could hold you," Derek admitted quietly. "I'm sorry we missed our chance in this timeline."

"Me too," Stiles said, his voice thick with emotion.

~*~

Peter was in bed, curled against his mate when Stiles's complaint of "three days already" reached his ears. He dropped his voice again to converse with Derek, but Peter extended his hearing a little further than he usually did and listened to the rest of what they were saying.

"Shit," Noah whispered quietly when Derek wished he could hold Stiles. Apparently he was able to extend his hearing that far as well.

"The past three days have been the best of my life—in this timeline, at least," Peter said earnestly, "but maybe it's time we got back to work?"

"Yeah," Noah said, scratching at the four day's worth of scruff on his face.

He rolled over, hovering over Peter a moment before dipping down to press their lips together. Peter was already getting hard again but the quiet words from across the hallway reminded him why they couldn't give in to temptation.

Noah sighed when Peter pulled away. "I don't want this to end."

"It won't," Peter said confidently. "Getting back to the original timeline has to be much easier than starting over with a new one."

"You're not wrong," Noah said, pressing a kiss to Peter's temple before rolling out of the bed. "Come on, husband, breakfast first."

"As long as I'm cooking," Peter said with a happy laugh. "After yesterday's disaster I'm just going to go ahead and assume I did all of the cooking."

Noah chuckled. "You assume correctly. Love you."

Peter still felt the need to pinch himself to check he wasn't dreaming, especially every time he got to say it back. "Love you, too."

~*~

Noah wanted to linger over breakfast but it was obvious that Stiles and Derek were both anxious to begin the process of restoring the timeline. All Noah really needed to do was audit the date Alan had provided, figure out where and when the druid had interfered with the timeline, and then time travel back to that exact point and stop any of it happening.

He hadn't meant to be cruel by delaying, but getting to know Peter all over again had been a gift he'd never expected. He wanted to fix everything and give Derek and Peter back their family, but he'd also wanted Peter to know that he would love him in any timeline and under any circumstances. There was a chance—thanks to his self-resurrection—that Peter would remember both timelines and Noah really, _really_ didn't want Peter to think he hadn't been loved in this one.

But Noah had delayed long enough.

"Is it weird that the date Deaton gave you is the same day we met for the first time?"

"Probably not," Noah said, reaching for his mate's hand and urging him toward the sofa. "Alan would have known about the way we let Talia erase our memories. It would have given him a unique opportunity to interfere while I was vulnerable. I'm hoping Talia didn't understand the damage she was doing."

"If she did, we'll deal with it," Peter said, sounding resigned as if they already knew the truth. Considering the other things Peter had lost from his memory Noah didn't blame him for thinking the worst. In the other timeline Malia was still adopted by the Tates, but with their consent Peter had also maintained a close relationship with his daughter. He'd still been in high school when Malia was born and the Tates had been a good choice as parents for his little girl, so it had been a decent solution to a difficult problem. Malia had loved her father, not ignored him.

"Okay, Daddio, how long does it take to audit a day in a timeline?"

"Depends on what I find," Noah said. "Think of it like a movie. I can pause and rewind when I need to, fast forward a few hours or leap into a specific time, but it will take the same time out here as I stay in there."

"So every minute you spend fast forwarding the hours in there is a minute out here?"

"Correct," Noah agreed.

"And how will we know if something goes wrong?"

"I'm just auditing the timeline, Stiles. I'm not even leaving the house and I'm not changing anything so there is no danger."

"So how do we wake you if you stay in too long?"

"I won't."

"So you're telling me that even if you stay locked in a coma-like state for three weeks that we should ignore you?"

"That won't happen," Noah said, growing annoyed at his son's over-anxious questions. "I'm a spark, Stiles. I know what I'm doing."

"And less than a week ago you thought you were a small town sheriff who knew what he was doing."

"That hardly compares."

"Noah," Peter said in the same tone he'd used in both timelines when Noah was being stubborn. "You said you can take someone with you. Take me."

Noah nodded slowly. He knew exactly why Peter was volunteering and it wasn't because he had a burning desire to witness history. It was because Noah's instincts would be to protect his mate at all costs and that included not getting caught up in the investigation of the timeline.

"Okay," he said, glancing over at Stiles with a raised eyebrow.

"Works for me," he said with a grin, apparently understanding it exactly the say way Peter did.

"So how do we do this?" Peter asked.

Noah couldn't resist the chance to tease. "Oh, you're going to hate it."

Peter grinned, apparently already recognizing Noah's tells. "Husband, do tell."

Blindsided, Noah swallowed hard. Peter's tone and wording were exact replicas of the Peter in the original timeline. So much was different with this version of his mate—after everything he'd lived through that was completely understandable—but occasionally Peter said or did something, moved a certain way, used a different inflection in his voice that left Noah feeling a horrendous mix of homesickness, guilt, and excitement. He swallowed hard again and reached for his husband's hand. "We need to be touching, skin to skin."

"Not too much skin," Stiles said, sounding grossed out the way offspring usually did when they thought of their parents having sex.

"G rated, of course," Noah said, rolling his eyes even though he was a little bit grateful for the interruption to his earlier emotional reaction to Peter's words.

"Bed or couch?"

"Couch should be work just fine."

"Just as well," Peter said, a devilish gleam in his eyes. "We've been horizontal an awful lot lately."

"Lalalalala," Stiles sang. "Not listening!"

Noah chuckled, made eye contact with Derek, who nodded in silent assurance that he'd monitor their heartbeats and keep Stiles distracted and then headed into the living room and took a seat on the couch. Peter didn't object when he pulled the werewolf sideways onto his lap and gently guided his face to the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

Peter pressed a kiss to the vulnerable flesh of Noah's throat, clearly pleased with the sign of trust.

"Will it be like the TVs in your mind?"

"More three dimensional than that. Kind of like the holodeck on a starship."

"I knew you were a closet geek," Peter teased.

"Where do you think Stiles got it from?"

"Huh, I never considered that," Peter said, pressing another kiss to Noah's throat. "And yeah, maybe you should get started before we get distracted again."

"Yeah," Noah agreed, already threading his fingers through Peter's hair, holding him close as he willed them into the past.

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

"The house hasn't changed much," Peter said, moving around the newer version of the home Noah still lived in. There were a few more photos, a few more knickknacks, a little less wear and tear, but for the most part the house Peter knew was almost a shrine to this one of the past.

Peter wanted that to mean something—he was used to life screwing him over—but Noah had spent the past three days proving over and over that Peter was his mate and that he was very definitely loved. The sheriff probably thought he was being sneaky, but Peter watched people, he knew their tells, he understood their reactions, and he could easily see through Noah's desperation to make up for the horrific things that had happened to Peter in this timeline.

And Peter was truly grateful for his efforts.

"They're in the kitchen with Talia and Alan," Noah said.

Peter extended his hearing to confirm that yes there were four adult heartbeats coming from the kitchen. There was also the faint fluttering of an unborn child. "I can't scent them," he said worriedly.

"Sorry," Noah said, not bothering to keep his voice down since no one could actually hear them. "I probably should have warned you about that. Sight and hearing are the only two senses that work in this environment. I'm not sure why."

"Okay," Peter said, trying not to be unnerved by the idea of not being able to feel anything either. "Is this what Stiles is experiencing in the artifact?"

"I think so." Noah gave him a small smile. "Are you delaying for a reason?"

"Maybe," Peter admitted. "It's only now occurring to me that I may be about to witness my sister betraying us both. Thinking she might have done it and seeing actual proof are apparently two different things in my mind."

"I can take you home," Noah said earnestly. "You don't have to be here, sweetheart. You don't need to know the details."

"As much as I would like to take the cowardly route," Peter said, admitting to his weakness a lot easier than he'd believed possible, "I think I really do need to know. If Talia is capable of this sort of betrayal I should be prepared."

"Okay," Noah said, moving into the kitchen. Peter was right behind him.

~*~

Derek startled at the feel of his phone vibrating in his pocket a moment before the ringtone started. He considered ignoring the call. Scott and his pack had been back in town for two full days and had taken over Derek's loft without a single thank you from the former alpha or any member of his pack, but if Scott was calling now it was likely important and probably something Derek needed to know.

"Scott," he said, not bothering with an actual greeting when he answered the phone.

"Deaton died an hour ago," Scott said, getting straight to the point. "Malia, Liam, and I are going to head to Marin's last known location. No one has been able to get in touch with her."

"Okay," Derek said, grateful to know Scott was at least trying to do the right thing. He'd driven back and forth each day to stay with Deaton when his family hadn't been there, and now he was willing to track down Marin and check on her welfare.

"Mom said the loft was your idea. Thanks, man. I was dreading having the pack scattered all over town. Most of them are pretty traumatized from what happened to their former packs. I'm glad they'll have you around to help them through it."

"Me?" Derek asked, feeling like he'd lost the thread of the conversation.

"I'm not an alpha anymore," Scott said. "I thought Peter would have told you."

"Things here have been a little…" Yeah, he had no idea how to explain Peter had been too busy _doing_ Noah to spend time gossiping. "Stiles mentioned it, but I don't see how that—"

He bit off his words as the reality hit him.

"It's pretty good timing," Scott said, sounding more like the optimistic teenager he'd been when they'd met nearly seven years ago than the distracted, over-confident true alpha of just a week ago.

"You want me to take over your pack?"

"I'll help," Scott said, earning a growl from deep in Derek's throat. "No. No. Not with the leadership and decision making. That's all yours, dude. Just, you know, with the introductions and the smooth handover, and if anyone is truly a bad match then I can help find them a new pack. That sort of thing."

"You're willing to step down?"

"Of course," Scott said easily. "I'm not an alpha anymore. Not sure I ever was, but if I can help the rest of the pack find a better alpha, then that's what I'll do."

"Would you be joining my pack too?" Derek asked, glancing down at the artifact in his hand and wondering why Stiles was being so quiet.

"Only if you invited me," Scott said, showing an unexpected understanding of what Derek was feeling. "Whatever Deaton did to make me a true alpha kind of messed me up. By the time I snapped out of it my best friend was a ghost and my pack was too frightened to disagree with me."

"For what it's worth," Derek said quietly. "I'm sorry you went through that."

"It was good timing though," Scott said with a soft sigh. "The same day you gave up your alpha spark to save your sister's life, Deaton made me a true alpha. It filled the gap. Made sure none of us went omega or gave a hostile alpha a chance to take over."

"True," Derek said, silently admitting that he liked Scott much better now than when he'd been a true alpha.

"So maybe Deaton was just trying to do the right thing," Scott suggested, clearly trying to find meaning in the things his deceased mentor had done.

"Maybe," Derek said, not really believing it himself but willing to give Scott that hope. If the timeline reset none of it mattered anyway, and well, if it didn't, Derek needed a pack and the former McCall pack needed an alpha. "Let me know when you find Marin?"

"Will do," Scott said. "Hey…um…"

Derek waited for Scott to speak. He could still hear his heartbeat through the connection but it had taken on a more erratic rhythm.

"Scott?"

"Yeah, still here. I'm just… Peter really didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what, Scott?"

"My beta eyes…they're…they're blue."

"So were mine," Derek said quietly. Scott sounded so bewildered that Derek couldn't withhold the need to reassure his former alpha. "It's the guilt we feel that makes them blue, Scott. It doesn't mean you actually killed an innocent." He hesitated a moment before adding, "Allison's death wasn't your fault."

"I didn't protect her," Scott whispered softly.

"I understand that guilt," Derek said, remembering the deaths of his family. "It seeps into your soul and feels like a permanent stain, but it doesn't mean you killed her." 

Scott was swallowing compulsively and clearly trying to hold back a sob of relief.

"Thanks, man," he finally said, his voice tight. "I'll um… I'll call when we find Marin."

"Okay," Derek said quietly. The line disconnected a moment later. "You still here, Stiles?"

"Yeah, just listening."

"He sounds like the best friend you had when I met you."

"He does," Stiles agreed quietly. "Thank you for reassuring him about the eye color. I suspected something like that when Theo was running around town yellow-eyed and murdering people, but with the whole dread doctors thing I wasn't really sure."

"Is Theo still part of the McCall pack?" Derek asked. He'd lost contact with most of them years ago. And he'd been almost gleeful a few months ago when the cowboy alpha—as Peter called him—had attacked Derek and tried to kill him in a shifter bar, attempting to prove he was a better choice as alpha to the betas of another pack. None of them had minded Derek winning the fight. A few had even offered to leave their pack when they'd realized he was a full-shift Hale. Derek had thanked them politely, refused their offers, and left town the same night.

He'd been ready for the backlash of being both an alpha and packless and had coped far better than his first time around.

"Theo was kind of pack adjacent the same way Peter was," Stiles said slowly. "I don't think proper pack bonds formed with any of Scott's betas. At least nothing like I experienced with Talia and you."

"A bond to an alpha feels very different to a mate bond," Derek said, not quite sure why he was upset that Stiles would feel them exactly the same.

"Oh, I know," Stiles said, sounding distracted. "When you inherited your mother's spark it knocked us both on our asses."

"I…" Derek's brain had come to a screeching halt. "I…um… Me?"

"You sound surprised?" Stiles said, apparently tuning back into the conversation in time to witness Derek's freak out."

"What happened to Laura?"

"What? Oh," Stiles said, sounding enlightened. "Nah, Laura was fine. You were just always the better choice."

"How?"

"I like to think I had something to do with it," Stiles said smugly. "A steady pre-mating bond goes a long way to stabilizing a teenage werewolf. It helps sparks too. I've known you since I was five years old. Well, in the original timeline, that is. Even when you thought of me as an annoying little kid the connection was there."

"So you're remembering more of the original timeline?"

"Yeah, I think it's all there. It's just… I need to think of something specific and the memories sort of fill in. Kind of like when someone says 'Do you remember the day when…' and you suddenly remember that day even though you haven't thought about it in years. It's sort of like that."

"And you think you know the day it ended?"

"Maybe," Stiles said.

~*~

Peter listened to his sister calmly discuss removing the memories of his mate without Peter getting a say in the matter. Yes, he was seventeen at the time and his mate was married with a baby on the way, but it still felt like an injustice to not be involved in the decision.

Surprisingly it was Claudia who advocated for Peter's rights.

"I need you to promise me, Talia," she said, talking over the alpha in a way only a human could manage. "I agree that today is very bad timing and I'll let you take the memory of it because it's what my husband wants, but I won't let Noah or Peter live their whole lives without their mate. Once the baby is born I want you to explain it to me. Give me time to understand that what happened today will happen next time they meet."

"It's clear that you love Noah deeply," Talia said, seeming surprised. "Why would you let someone as unsuitable as my brother take your place by his side?"

The shock on Claudia's face was heartwarming. "Unsuitable?" she asked, her temper clearly rising. "How dare you? Peter is your brother, your beta, and already your left hand." She gave Talia a hard look. "Yes, I am aware of what a left hand does for his pack. I may not be a shifter or a spark or a druid but I do know how things work in your world, and I find it unfathomable that you would consider keeping Peter away from his mate."

"He's seventeen," Talia said, apparently backing down from the human taking her to task. "It's… He… The timing… He's still in high school."

"Which is why we're doing this," Claudia said with a slow nod, "but if they haven't met again within the next five years, I swear I will find a way to remember and then I will make your life miserable."

Noah chuckled softly.

"I can see why you fell for her," Talia said to him with a soft smile. She turned back to Claudia. "Once Peter has finished college, I'll make sure they meet again. I promise. And Alan and I will make sure you know well ahead of time that Noah has a mate and how that will affect your future. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," Claudia said, smoothing a hand over her belly. "I can live with that."

Peter and Noah watched as Talia carefully slid her claws into Claudia's and then Noah's necks. When it was done they laughed about how they'd had their tattoos removed earlier that day and about how ridiculous it was that Noah and Claudia had thought getting matching tattoos the day they'd met was such a great idea.

"I guess that explains the weird responses I was giving you when you called my scars claw marks."

"I guess it does," Peter agreed. "Is it just me or is Deaton being less shifty than usual?"

"It's not just you," Noah said, replaying the scene over again. Peter had to blink back tears when Claudia argued his case again. Noah fast forwarded once Claudia's terms had been accepted—and Peter was pretty sure Noah had replayed it to reinforce how much Claudia had cared for Peter and his wellbeing—and then they watched in confused awe as Talia and Deaton finally left and Noah pulled his wife into his arms.

"Well, Mrs. Stilinski, now that we've erased the evidence of our ill-considered trip to the tattooist and ensured that our offspring cannot use it against us when they want to cover their entire body in tattoos, I think we deserve a celebration."

"What did you have in mind?" Claudia asked with a soft, delighted laugh.

"Dinner in Paris?"

"Why not," Claudia said. "May as well take advantage of teleportation while I can." She smoothed her hand over her belly again. "I still can't believe that carrying a baby spark is the reason I'm not getting motion sick anymore. I suppose it's too much to hope that it continues once the baby is born."

"Maybe it will," Noah said, placing his hand on the soft swell of her stomach. "I've never been able to quell the nausea you feel, but he's doing it before he's even born."

"He?" Claudia asked, shaking her head but grinning happily. "You said you didn't know if our baby is a boy or a girl."

"I…um…"

"Don't bother," Claudia said, still smiling. "I always know when you're trying to avoid telling me the truth." She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. "So we're having a boy, huh?"

"Yeah," Noah said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"And you still want to give him my dad's name?"

"I really do," Noah admitted.

"As long as you're sure," Claudia said. "Now take me to Paris. You don't want to get between a pregnant woman and her dinner."

"Yes, ma'am."

The couple vanished from the room in the blink of an eye.

"Your eyes were glowing," Peter said as they both stood staring at the spot where the couple had been.

"And they both still knew about my spark."

Peter nodded. "It would seem that Talia upheld her part of the bargain."

"And Alan didn't do anything at all suspicious."

"And the trip to Paris was unplanned. No one knew they were going to be there, so unless their attacker was a spark as well it's unlikely they were attacked there."

"Could it have been a spark?"

"I've never met another spark," Noah admitted. "There are others—about a dozen or so worldwide—but I can sense them and they can sense me. Even if a spark could sneak up on me, why would they be working with Deaton? He said he 'wasn't strong enough' so we know he was involved somehow, but why would a spark need him? Deaton barely had enough power to maintain the wards on the Hale house. I reinforced them in the original timeline, but you know what happened in this timeline when I was er… _unavailable_."

"Did Deaton give you the wrong date?"

"It's possible," Noah said, closing his eyes as if to recall the conversation more clearly. "But he seemed pretty certain."

"So should we follow him?" Peter asked. "Maybe he has a clandestine meeting or urgent phone call to make."

Noah shrugged. "Right now it's probably our best choice." He closed his eyes and let the scene change around them.

"Whoa, that's disorienting," Peter said, reaching over to steady himself against the counter of the vet clinic before remembering that _touch_ was not one of the things he could do in this environment. Falling through the counter made of mountain ash wasn't nearly as confusing as passing through the wall to find Deaton in a heated discussion with a very familiar person.

  
  



	13. Chapter 13

"Derek?" Stiles asked worriedly as the werewolf's attention was suddenly drawn to his dad and Peter.

"Peter's heart rate just spiked."

"Is he okay?" Stiles wasn't surprised to realize he was as worried for Peter as he was for his dad. As more and more memories filtered into his conscious mind he understood why. Peter had been as much his parent in the original timeline as Stiles's genetic parents. And he'd been his mom's best friend. It made him sick to his stomach to remember that in this timeline he'd set the man on fire and stood by while his nephew tore out his throat.

"Your dad's heart rate just spiked too, but they're not in any danger," Derek said. "If I had to guess what's happening I'd say they just found something they weren't expecting."

"If it surprised them, does that mean our theories were wrong?"

"Maybe," Derek said, tilting his head toward the living room. "They're coming out of it."

"Dad, Peter," Stiles called as he tried to rush into the other room. Fortunately Derek understood his panic and quickly moved himself and the artifact holding Stiles in place.

"We're okay," Peter said, not taking his eyes off Noah's face. Dad didn't look like he agreed, even when he repeated the reassurance as he stood up.

"What happened? What did you find?"

"Nothing that can help," Dad said in a growly tone. Peter was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"Noah," Peter started to say, but Dad cut him off.

"If _he_ was there, it was for a good reason."

" _He_ being _you_ , you mean," Peter said stubbornly. "That was you. Older, grayer, but definitely you, right? You don't have a twin brother or look-alike cousin I'm not aware of, do you?"

Stiles could almost feel Peter begging for some sort of reasonable explanation even though he was being as belligerent as Dad.

"If I was there," Dad said, dismissively, "then I had a damn good reason."

"If?" Stiles asked. "Dad, was it you or not?"

"Drop it, Stiles," Dad growled in a tone Stiles hadn't heard since the other timeline had started to…

Fuck.

"Dad, you changed it? The day Peter died you came back into the past. You're the one who changed it."

"I had my reasons," Noah yelled, angrier than Stiles had ever heard him.

"You remember why," Stiles said, not making it a question. "Dad, if you remember you have to tell us. We can still fix this."

"It is fixed. This was the only solution."

"What do you mean? How can this timeline be the answer? _This_ timeline? The one where the Hale family was murdered, and your mate spent six years burned and alone, and my power was stolen…" Stiles swallowed and wished more than ever that he could hide in his mate's arms. "You gave Deaton the power. You showed him how. Told him what to do."

"Damn it, Stiles! This discussion is over!"

And then Dad did something Stiles would never have expected even if he'd lived a million years. Dad grabbed the artifact, squeezed it hard in his palm, and somehow silenced Stiles.

Peter's legs wobbled as he stared at his mate in shock. Derek snatched the artifact back, pressing the orb between both hands, listening, waiting and obviously not hearing a word Stiles screamed.

"Sheriff," Derek asked quietly, "what did you just do?"

Noah shook his head, his eyes glistening with unspent tears, and then he turned and left the room.

~*~

Peter was shaking so hard he could no longer stand. Even through his own shock Derek noticed and moved quickly to support him, easing Peter back onto the couch and then crouching in front of him.

"I don't understand," Peter said, his voice breaking with emotion. "The original timeline seemed idyllic. I saw Noah's memories. We were happy. You and Stiles, Talia, the rest of our family… What could have happened to make Noah think this is the _better_ timeline?"

"Stiles said the timeline ceased the day you died."

"But he didn't get a chance to explain what he knew before Noah silenced him."

"Silenced?" Derek asked, his voice shaking as much as Peter's. "You think Stiles can still hear us?"

"Noah loves his son. He wouldn't erase his soul or destroy the artifact, even if he was planning to go back into the past and protect his son from the wendigo."

"What's to stop him from just erasing this conversation?" Derek asked, apparently realizing the same thing Peter had. "He has the power to change the timeline. He can audit any part of history he wants. He's… Peter we can't stop him. There's no limit to his power."

Peter nodded sadly in agreement and whispered, "And absolute power corrupts absolutely."

~*~

Stiles raged, pacing back and forth in his artifact prison, unable to communicate, unable to stop his father even as he felt the timeline changing again.

Fuck.

~*~

Peter woke to the sound of sirens, the smell of smoke reaching his nose a moment before the horrifying screams of someone on fire reached his ears. He stumbled from his bed, absently registering the oddly familiar heartbeats as he opened the door and fled into the hallway. Laura was there, young and terrified, Peter's cousin beside her with a frantic toddler screaming in her arms.

"Uncle Peter?" Laura asked, raising her voice to be heard over the din.

"Down to the tunnels," he ordered. "You'll be safer underground. Follow them to the evacuation point and wait there for the others."

Laura nodded frantically.

"Where are Cora and Derek?"

"I don't know."

"I'll get them. Go to the tunnels. Grab anyone you find on the way and take them with you."

He didn't wait to see if they followed his orders, just turned and ran to the far end of the hallway. Talia's room was empty, Derek's and Cora's too. He followed the smell of burning flesh, flashing red and blue lights adding a weird atmosphere to the smoke-filled but unexpectedly still house as he ran through room after room and found them all empty. Despite the stench none of the rooms were on fire.

Peter had a weird moment of déjà vu. The house was supposed to be on fire. He'd…dreamed it? Maybe?

But his questions were set aside when he found the source of the fire.

The fire brigade was still tackling the flames high in the trees surrounding the house, but they'd already managed to douse the woman who'd been on fire. Emergency personnel had already abandoned their effort to save her and were placing a tarp over her body as Peter arrived.

"Who?" he asked, glancing around the area seeking each member of his family.

"We don't know yet," the paramedic said with a sad shake of his head. "Is anyone else hurt?"

"I don't think so," Peter said, again feeling a sense of déjà vu. Most of his family were werewolves and capable of rapid healing but they did have some human members too. Peter wasn't willing to send the paramedics on their way until he was sure everyone was safe and accounted for. He turned toward the evacuation point and didn't argue when the paramedic grabbed his bag and followed.

Peter was grateful to find his entire family gathered together safe and well until a searing heat tore through his back. He fell to his knees and watched as his family was murdered by an automatic weapon held in the hands of a hunter pretending to be a paramedic.

He reached for Derek, wanting his alpha even as confusion told him the kid was just a beta. But a second bullet—this time to the back of his head—ended his life.

~*~

Stiles woke as the door to his bedroom opened.

"Daddy?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eye with one hand as he stretched the other to grab the stuffed rabbit his mom had given him before she died.

"It's okay, son. Go back to sleep."

Awareness slammed him. He had but a moment to react before his dad pressed a warm hand to his head and everything changed.

~*~

Peter woke to the sounds of gunfire.

He rushed from his bed and stumbled into the hallway. Laura was there, Cora in her arms, Derek shaking beside her.

"Go into the tunnels. Stay in there. Don't go to the evacuation point."

"But—"

"Just do it!"

He turned away, unwilling to argue. Everything was different yet somehow déjà vu kept slamming him. They couldn't evacuate. That's where everyone died.

The thought struck him so hard that he nearly fell to his knees. How could he remember dying?

He moved toward the windows, careful to stay out of the line of fire.

There was a man in a deputy's uniform, covered in blood, being struck by countless bullets as he rampaged through a group of humans—hunters by the looks of them—disarming them easily as he apparently searched for someone specific.

"Where is she?" the man screamed, lifting one of the now-unarmed hunters as if he weighed no more than a small child. "Where the fuck is she?"

"Noah," Peter whispered, uncertain how he would know the deputy's name but certain he was right. He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch and regretted the impulsive decision the moment a wolfsbane laced bullet struck his heart.

~*~

Peter woke to the sounds of terror.

He rushed into the hallway. Already knowing he was somehow reliving the same event. Everything was different but also the same, and he was not looking forward to the pain of dying yet again. He stilled when he remembered another outcome—being burned and going insane in his own mind, isolated and alone and terrified for six long years.

All of those outcomes happened. Peter had no way of explaining how he knew that but he knew the name of someone who could.

Noah Stilinski. His mate.

~*~

Awareness returned to Stiles again a few seconds after his dad closed the door behind him. That was too close but thank fuck he had the ability to throw copies of his memories forward into his mind a few minutes in the future. He would have been helpless without the knowledge of his spark and everything his dad was trying to change.

Stiles lay still, gathering his thoughts and his memories, and tried to follow the gossamer-thin thread of his spark. The body he was currently in seemed to be eight or nine years old. If he was in the timeline he thought he was in, it was probably the night the Hale house had burned down. And it meant in this timeline Deaton had been siphoning Stiles's power since before he was born.

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the original timeline, remembering all of the lessons his father had given him on how to control his spark, how to bend it to his will, how to use it to help people, not hurt them.

And as the memories coalesced in his mind so did his understanding,

Several miles away Deaton felt the spell dissolve and was grateful for it.

~*~

Peter escaped the burning house and ran straight through a deactivated line of mountain ash. A bullet winged him, grazing his arm, the burn of wolfsbane unmistakable.

"Noah," he called desperately. "I remember all of them." He fell to his knees when another bullet hit him. "Please." He lowered his voice, pleading with his mate to understand. "I remember all of the timelines. Please don't put me through this."

And suddenly he was there right in front of him, on his knees as well, steadying Peter when he would have fallen forward.

"You remember?" Noah asked, clearly upset. "You weren't supposed to. I erased the timeline where you were resurrected. It didn't happen. You shouldn't remember."

"I don't know how I remember," Peter said, "but I do."

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry." Noah wrapped his arms around Peter and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. It was only then that Peter realized they were still surrounded.

"The hunters?" he asked urgently.

"Neutralized," Noah said with a grim smile, using one of Peter's favorite answers when he didn't want to explain the specifics of how he'd dealt with a supernatural problem. It had always been good for his reputation for others to believe he was more ruthless than he actually was. "Which is what we need to do with the wolfsbane in your system."

"Can't you just use your spark to burn it out?"

"If you want to spend the next three days puking, sure."

"Seriously?" Peter asked. "Is there anything about your spark that doesn't make me sick?"

"That's the problem," Noah said, the salty scent of his tears reaching Peter's nose before he even realized the sudden change in his mate's mood. "It's what killed you. In the original timeline it killed you and it killed Claudia and Derek was already showing the early symptoms before he and Stiles got married."

"Fronto-temporal dementia?"

"The effect is close enough to the human disease. A gradual loss of brain mass and function. It starts with memory loss and personality changes and progresses to paranoia, hallucinations and delusions. And then the physical effects follow rapidly as the brain starts to shut down and the organs quickly follow."

"And even being a werewolf didn't help me?"

"It didn't," Noah said with a rough shake of his head. "You lived fewer years than Claudia."

"But she died from it in this—the other?—timeline too. The one where you hid your spark."

"Yeah, apparently hiding my spark and not using it doesn't protect anyone. She died faster in that timeline because I didn't meet and marry you."

"Fuck," Peter said, both at the hopelessness of the situation and the burn of the wolfsbane as it entered his heart.

"Shit," Noah said already placing Peter on the grass beside an unconscious hunter. He grabbed the woman's weapon, took a bullet from the magazine, and broke it open. He burned the wolfsbane on his hand, not even flinching at the heat against his skin, and then pushed the ash into Peter's open wound. He roared with the pain, his fangs dropping with his loss of control. "It's okay. Breathe for me, sweetheart. Just a minute more and you'll heal and I'll reset the timeline and we'll try again."

"No," Peter said, gasping through the pain but determined to make his mate listen. "No. You need to restore the original timeline."

"But you died," Noah said, shaking his head as tears ran freely down his face. "I can't watch that again."

"I've died three times since," Peter reminded him quietly, flinching with his mate as the words rammed home. "The memories you showed me from the original timeline. We were happy. We loved each other and we had years together. I wouldn't trade that for a hundred lifetimes, especially not if they were lived without you."

"But knowing me is what killed you."

"Worth it," Peter said quietly as the pain of wolfsbane poisoning slowly subsided. "And we weren't the only ones who were happy, Noah." Peter wasn't sure of all the details. He only had the memories of the timeline changes after his resurrection in the second timeline but he was willing to bet that the teens in the McCall pack had lived very different and less tragic lives in the original timeline.

"I can't go back to a world without you in it," Noah admitted quietly.

"And I can't live knowing that others have paid such an awful price for our selfishness."

"Peter," Noah said, his name coming out as a quiet sob. "Please don't make me do this."

"Sweetheart, I love you so much."

"You only remember three good days," Noah said, his lips quivering with grief.

Peter pulled his mate into a fierce embrace. "Imagine how blessed I felt when we had decades." His arms shook as he remembered again the memories that he'd seen both in Noah's mind and when they'd audited the timeline and witnessed Claudia fearlessly defying an alpha werewolf to fight on Peter's behalf for his right to be loved. "Please, Noah. Restore the original timeline. You know it's the right thing to do."

"I love you," Noah said, his voice quiet but fierce, his arms shaking with his overwhelming grief.

"And I will always love you, Noah," Peter promised, "in every timeline, but it's time to let me go."

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

The moment Noah agreed with his mate everything changed and he was left with the memory of sending Stiles back in time to stop him from altering the timeline. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed, uncaring where he was or who might see him.

"Dad?" Stiles said as he sat down on the grass beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I know what just happened is really painful, but I need you to recall a few memories. Can you do that for me?"

"Why would I want to?" Noah asked, the pain in his chest so sharp he found himself almost hoping he was having a heart attack.

"Dad, just humor me okay. I promise you won't regret it."

"Fine," he grumbled. "Which ones?"

"Do you remember Mom's funeral?"

"Of course I d—" He cut off his words trying to sort through the mess of memories in his mind. He closed his eyes and concentrated, reconstructing the images in the way he'd shown them to Peter. There was the door for the original timeline—the one he'd restored—and several more down the hallway. Three of them opened onto rooms with only a handful of TVs playing memories of Peter dying. The timelines had existed for mere minutes but they tore at Noah's heart, especially when he remembered Peter telling him he remembered them all.

"Just a little more," Stiles said, suddenly beside him in his mind. "Hey, wow, your mind is so different to mine. My timelines are more like a tree than hallways. I probably should have guessed. You've always been more serious, more organized in your logic."

Stiles rambled about the differences between their perceptions of the timelines and their personalities for a few more moments. Noah was grateful for the reprieve _and_ the support. He really didn't want to go through any of this alone.

The fourth door was the timeline Noah had changed when he'd approached Alan Deaton and convinced him that altering everyone's memories , scrambling Noah's mind, and siphoning Stiles's power was the only way to keep Beacon Hills safe. The druid had obviously been worried, but in the end he'd trusted Noah and done what he'd asked. When it had all started to go wrong he'd done his best to hold things together and when the power he'd been siphoning from Stiles had gotten too much he'd pushed it into the supernatural people around him. When Derek had given up his alpha spark to save his sister, Alan had used the overflow to create a new alpha in an effort to keep Beacon Hills safe. Scott had maybe been the wrong choice, but Alan had no doubt realized he was Stiles's best friend and had likely assumed Scott being an alpha meant Stiles would be better protected.

But as Stiles had unknowingly grown into his power, Deaton had struggled even more, the link no longer stable, no longer doing what it was meant to do. He'd done his best but the faulty connection had overwhelmed Scott and the non-human pack members closest to him. They'd grown cold and distant and ever less human every day. When Stiles had died the entire thing had unraveled.

Fuck, even if Alan didn't remember what had happened in other timelines, Noah owed him so much. Guilt swelled through him when he remembered how little he'd cared for the dying man. He'd been so angry with what he'd thought had been stolen by someone else that he'd blamed the most obvious culprit and never looked beyond that. Alan Deaton had been a good friend to Noah his entire life—even in a timeline Noah hadn't even known himself. Alan had been the only one left with memories of Noah being a spark. And he'd carried that burden alone. Noah had altered everyone else's memories at that point in the timeline, erasing everything to do with sparks, including the connection between Stiles and Derek.

"Dad," Stiles said, pulling Noah away from the horrifying memories and realizations of a timeline that was entirely his fault. "Dad, there's another door."

"I don't remember this one," he said, glancing around in confusion.

The memories were stronger here.

"Wait," he said, not really trusting his own senses. "This is the current timeline?" His gaze darted around the room, seeing unfamiliar memories. "I failed? I wasn't able to restore the original one?"

"Yes and no," Stiles said, leaving him perplexed and irritated in a way that only his son had ever been able to achieve.

"Meaning?" Noah ground out, not in the mood for games.

"Meaning you _did_ restore the original timeline. This one…" He indicated the TVs flickering to life all around them. "This one is on me."

"I know I didn't teach you that," Noah said as he glanced around the TVs and remembered the happy scenes from the current timeline.

"Perils of raising a genius," Stiles said in a tone that didn't sound at all arrogant, despite its inherent meaning. "I figured it out."

"Didn't you learn anything from my failures?" Noah asked, irrationally annoyed that his son seemed determined to repeat his old man's mistakes.

"Trust me, Daddio. I learned _everything_ from your mistakes."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I learned many tiny tweaks work better than one grand gesture." He grinned when Noah met his gaze. "I have no doubt you would have figured that out eventually." And then he grew more serious. "There's a reason mental health experts advise against big decisions when you're suffering from grief."

"Not my finest moment," Noah admitted. He clearly remembered the anguish of Peter dying in his arms. He'd been so determined to fix everything that he hadn't stopped to wonder what else he might mess up in an otherwise happy timeline. If fate had a sense of humor it'd be laughing its fucking ass off at the disaster Noah had created. Especially when he'd panicked and tried to reset the timeline again and again only to have Peter die in each of them. "Peter remembered the new timelines and he begged me to stop."

"I know," Stiles said. "And I have no doubt he'll forgive you."

Noah didn't really question Stiles's use of present tense—time travel was a total mind fuck and the English language didn't have a hope in hell of keeping up—until Stiles repeated the question about Claudia's funeral again.

"She…" Memories flickered on the TVs, playing scenes over and over that Noah realized were part of the new timeline. "You found a treatment. Claudia didn't die?"

"Nope," Stiles said, grinning and rocking back on his heels the same way he did in the real world when he knew he was right. "And if it didn't kill Mom…"

"Peter's alive?"

Noah didn't wait for Stiles to answer. He threw himself out of his own mind and finally realized the second set of arms around him belonged to his mate.

"Hello, husband," Peter said with a wide, happy smile. "Welcome home."

~*~

"I assume," Peter said, glancing around the manicured lawn of the Hale pack house in a timeline he was only now starting to remember, "that someone is going to explain why I seem to be alive… again… still?"

"I would if I could," Noah admitted with a confused shrug. "But right now I'm struggling to catch up myself. Stiles?"

Stiles laughed softly and rubbed the back of his neck. "If it's any consolation I am done with the time traveling and have no intention of passing on my knowledge. No more tweaking things to our advantage."

Peter laughed softly at that. He knew his son well and… "Holy shit," he whispered under his breath as distorted pictures and memories tried to invade his conscious mind all at once. He and Noah and Claudia had all raised Stiles together.

"Stiles?" Noah asked in that aggrieved tone he usually saved for their eldest. "An explanation please."

"Um… Okay… So um… when I realized that Peter could remember the timelines in the same linear way that we do I might have gone back and audited a few key points in the original timeline."

"Might have?" Noah asked, his voice rather disbelieving considering Peter's presence proved that a lie.

But Peter was more interested in Stiles's use of a certain word. "Linear?"

"Well maybe not as linear as my memories," Stiles admitted. "You should remember everything from the timeline we're currently in. You met Dad at twenty-three, married him less than a year later with Mom's blessing, built a life together, had a bunch of kids."

"A bunch of kids?" Noah asked disbelievingly even as the memories slowly made sense in Peter's brain.

"I'll…um…get back to that," Stiles said flailing his arms, reminding Peter of the kid with ADHD in the other horrible timeline where Peter was burned and abandoned for six long years.

"I remember the altered timeline and a couple more." Peter ran a few memories through his mind. The memories from the second timeline before his resurrection felt more like memories of memories, sort of like photocopies before digital printing, faded and blurry and crooked on the page. The memories of dying twice more and the third time when he'd begged Noah to restore the original timeline were much clearer.

"I'm so sorry," Noah said in a tone that Peter recognized as filled with deep regret.

"Your intentions were noble," Peter said, trying to soothe his husband's guilt.

"The road to hell…"

"Is paved with good intentions," Peter finished. "I know the saying and I understand why you would think that, but maybe you should consider the fact that it worked. I'm still here."

"Stiles fixed it," Noah said, stubbornly holding onto his guilt the way he always did.

"Stiles," their son said, speaking of himself in third person, "learned from his dad's mistakes and may have even made a misstep or two along the way."

"Abigail?" Noah asked in a sad voice.

"She was adopted by another family," Stiles said quietly. "She was only ours for a couple years before the original timeline changed. And I have checked in on her over the years. She's happy and safe and nowhere near the paranormal world which might even be better for her anyway."

"She was human?" Peter asked, trying to pinpoint the conversation he'd had with Noah in the second timeline.

"She is and she's happy and that's the important part."

"Stiles, why do I remember Peter being pre—"

"Okay," Stiles said, rubbing his hands together and leaping to his feet to pace. "So…um… sparks remember the timelines in a linear fashion in the order we lived them. And it should be the way you're remembering it too, Peter." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "So for us it's been um… sixteen years since we were in this timeline but our families only remember this timeline so for them it's only been a few minutes. They are literally going to expect us to remember what happened this morning in this timeline even though the memories for the three of us are sixteen years old."

Peter remembers puking his guts out after Noah teleported them into the hospital where Deaton was dying and he's pretty sure he didn't feel this ill back then. Time travel... What a total mind fuck.

"So…um… It might be easiest if we just jump into someone's memory and do a quick run down of what happened in this timeline in the past twenty-four years."

"Or we could just play a around of 'Do you remember when?'" Noah suggested. "I suspect there's a lot of sex in my and Peter's memories."

"Lalalala, not listening," Stiles sang, placing his hands over his ears but winking at Peter just the same.

"Okay, I'll start," Noah said, apparently pleased with the reaction from his son…their son. "I remember the day we met the second time in the first timeline. Okay, yeah, this is going to be harder to verbalize than I thought."

"I remember it too," Peter said, smiling as the memory unfolded in his mind. "I was twenty-three, recently graduated and annoyed at Talia for buying me the wrong car for a graduation gift."

Noah chuckled softly. "I never knew that."

"I was a spoiled brat," Peter admitted freely, "and I was driving far too fast even if it was the middle of the night and the roads were deserted."

"And you may have gotten away with it," Noah said, grinning happily, "if a certain deputy hadn't been placed on graveyard-shift traffic duty as punishment for running for Sheriff against the current one."

"The whole time you were writing the ticket I wanted to climb you like a tree," Peter said, grinning broadly at Stiles's squawk and resumption of singing lalalalala. "And then you took me home to meet your wife."

"And Claudia was so amazing," Noah reminisced. "She knew who you were the moment we stepped in the door."

"Even Stiles and Marie took it in stride."

"Marie?" Noah said, his eye widening as he looked at Stiles. "You have a younger sister. Claudia's daughter?"

"I do," Stiles said, grinning like he knew something they didn't. "Keep going. You'll get there."

"And Malia," Peter said, searching his memories and finding different ones to the ones Noah had shared in the second timeline. "You and Claudia adopted her too."

"And," Stiles said, bouncing on his feet, so excited that Peter could barely wait to recall the memories.

"And we found a way," Noah said slowly, "for Peter to get pregnant and carry our babies?"

"We did," Stiles said, practically walking on air—or was that literally? It was hard to tell from the angle Peter was in, still sitting on the grass and holding his husband tight. "After you and Peter audited the second timeline and everything went haywire I went back and watched the scene myself. When I realized Mom was immune to the travel sickness when she was pregnant with me, I decided to do a bit of research."

"And discovered that each pregnancy created a type of immunity for the carrier," Peter said as the memories filtered into his mind. "And that three times pregnant makes it permanent."

"Exactly!" Stiles said triumphantly, rocking on his heels. "So I now have how many siblings?"

"Six counting Malia," Noah said, his voice filled with wonder.

"Correct, Daddio. You get a gold star."

"I'd probably be pissed at the condescending tone," Noah said to Peter in a lowered voice that Stiles could no doubt still hear, "if I wasn't so damn happy."

"We have seven children," Peter said, slowly filling in the gaps in his memory. Stiles and Marie at six and four years of age welcoming him into their family; a pregnant and utterly incredible Claudia befriending him and assuring him over and over that she didn't mind that he'd be taking her place, that she'd known he was coming and was fully prepared to step aside; the realization that her pregnancies had made her immune to the deadly effects of loving a spark and the hilarity of explaining to Talia and the rest of the Hale family how he ended up pregnant and then doing it twice more; and the years of love and laughter and occasional heartbreak, the good times and bad and everything that happened in a life well lived and cherished.

Peter blinked back tears and hugged his husband tighter as another realization unfolded in his mind.

By manipulating the timeline and finding a cure to the illness that killed both Claudia and Peter in the original timeline Stiles had also given Noah a wider support network, a bigger family to hold onto if the inevitable end came for Peter before Noah again.

Peter had no intention of dying easily, especially now that he had so many grandchildren to dote on already and more on the way.

"Every single one of your genetic descendants is a spark, grandchildren included."

"Yeah," Noah said with a soft quaver in his voice. "Let's hope they're not all as troublesome as Stiles."

"Hey! Standing right here."

Peter laughed, perhaps just a little hysterically. "And what, dear husband, do you think our chances are of having less troublesome offspring than our Mieczyslaw?"

"I could be wrong," Stiles said, "you know, me being biased and all, but I'm guessing roughly… zero." He smirked. "Maybe even less."

Yeah, that's pretty much what Peter thought too. They were talking about the children of a full-shift—holy shit, he could fully shift into a wolf in this timeline—Hale beta and an extremely powerful spark. If nothing else, the rest of their life together was going to be rather… interesting.

And despite everything he'd been through in the other timelines—or perhaps because of it—Peter was determined to never take anything for granted ever again.

EPILOGUE

"I hear your granddaughter killed it at the regionals."

"She did," Melissa said with a wide smile. "Gold in all three events."

"Next stop the Olympics?"

"That's the plan," Chris said, joining his wife and the conversation with Noah. "Last time we saw Allie and Scott they were strutting like peacocks, they were so proud."

"And so they should," Noah said. "With Allie's genes they were bound to be world class archers."

"As opposed to Scott's clumsiness?" Melissa asked, clearly teasing.

"True," Noah agreed. "Fortunately Allie's genetics managed to compensate."

"But Scott's overrode the asshole gene prevalent in my family," Chris added, "which is far more important."

"Also true," Noah easily agreed. Without the influence of her psychopathic grandpa or her aunt Kate, Allie had grown into a beautiful, intelligent, generous woman. And Scott had grown into the clumsy, adorable sweetheart he should have been all along. Noah was so grateful that only Stiles and Peter remembered the second timeline. Even Stiles's younger siblings were unaware of that horrific timeline because they'd been born in a timeline that had started after the other had been closed.

Noah rubbed his forehead as he felt the now familiar headache coming on.

Some days even he wasn't sure exactly how it all worked in his memory, especially when he took into account how it would be perceived differently by Peter and Stiles. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was never messing with the timeline ever again.

"You okay, Noah?" Chris asked. "Anything you need my help with?"

Chris's offer was genuine and maybe a little too enthusiastic. He'd retired from hunting—officially two decades ago; unofficially only a couple years back. He was very happy living a much quieter life but he occasionally missed the challenge of dealing with the supernatural.

"I'm good," Noah said, smiling at Melissa's knowing smirk, "but if you're bored, Sheriff Parrish has a couple of new deputies who could do with some extra training."

"Humans?"

"One of them," Noah said with a nod. "Totally oblivious. The other is a cougar shifter who could really use a few lessons on how to handle things the human way. Stiles had to step in the other day when the kid dropped fangs as he chased down a car-jacker."

"I can see how that would be a problem. I'm assuming Jordan spoke to him."

"He did," Noah said with a chuckle.

"Has the kid figured out his new boss is a hellhound yet?"

"Not yet."

"I look forward to that reveal," Melissa said. "The first time I saw Jordan go all hellhound I couldn't stop staring."

"And that had nothing to do with the fact most of his clothes had burned away."

Melissa bit her lips together and laughed softly. "I wasn't the only one," she said, easily throwing her companions under the metaphorical bus. "Peter and Derek had the same reaction."

"I agree Jordan is seriously hot in more ways than one," Chris said, unperturbed by his wife's appreciation of a much younger man.

"And I suggest you don't say that in front of Rafe," Melissa said, still grinning. "He's already worried that we'll leave him for a younger man."

"As if we could ever replace that asshole," Chris said, obviously very aware that Rafael McCall was standing behind him.

"You're lucky I put up with you," Rafael said, pressing a kiss to Melissa's cheek before turning to give Chris the same. "Did I miss anything important?"

"You wouldn't miss anything at all if you'd just retire already."

Rafael snorted and took a sip of the beer in his hand. "Says the man already looking for more work despite supposedly retiring from policing the supernatural a decade ago."

"Once a hunter, always a hunter," Chris said, leaning into his husband. "How about we make a pact just to retire when Melissa does."

"We'll be working till we're in our nineties if the terrifying Nurse McCall has her way."

Melissa grinned and shrugged, not bothering to deny how much she still enjoyed her job. She changed the subject instead. "How's Derek doing?"

"Still trying to convince the twins that merging into a giant werewolf-like creature is only for emergencies and not for scaring off ex-boyfriends."

"How old are they now?"

"Fourteen," Noah said, hoping that the terrible teenage years wouldn't last much longer with his youngest grandchildren. Fortunately Kali's boyfriend had been a werewolf too. He'd freaked out, of course, but there hadn't been any risk to the paranormal secret they kept from the rest of the human population. Nevertheless Stiles had been seriously upset at the risk they'd taken—perhaps because he did remember the timeline where humans learned their secrets—and had threatened to bind both their werewolf and spark powers until they were old enough to understand the risk they'd taken.

The girls were the youngest of Stiles and Derek's five children and had predictably rebelled against being told what to do. They'd backed down somewhat when Derek had calmly explained the possibilities of their secret being revealed. Judging by how accurately he'd described the situation that had happened in the other timeline Noah was pretty sure Stiles had been sharing those memories with his mate for a very long time. Things were tense at the Hale alpha's home—Talia had retired and passed the alpha spark to Derek more than a decade ago—but at least three, maybe four people in this timeline knew life could be much, much worse.

"Where are Claudia and Alan tonight?"

"They'll be here soon," Noah said, checking his watch. "Despite claiming to be retired Claudia still volunteered to teach an evening course for adult literacy skills and Deaton is no doubt helping Scott down at the clinic while he's waiting for her to finish."

"So none of us are actually retired," Chris said with a soft laugh.

"Hey," Noah said, grinning broadly. "I retired years ago."

"No, you didn't," Melissa teased. "You just gave up _earning_ money from what you do when your husband started making serious cash on the stock market."

"Well there is that," Noah said, not at all surprised that Peter had been able to invest so wisely. Possibly the most incredible part was that in this timeline he'd already repeated the financial decisions he'd made in the other timeline when he'd not known anything about time travel or the future. "Besides the hours are so much better."

"They are not," Peter contradicted. "It's almost guaranteed you'll get an emergency call out the moment dinner is ready."

"Yeah, that part sucks, but the hours are better because now you come with me."

"I suppose that is an acceptable trade off, especially when it means spending time with our grandchildren."

"Yep, we're Daddy Day care."

"Well… Grand-Daddy Day Care," Melissa suggested cheekily.

"Soon to be Great-Grand-Daddy Day Care," Peter announced, smirking at the surprised look on their friend's faces. "Stiles and Derek's eldest daughter met her mate a few months ago. We're working on the assumption that babies will quickly follow."

"If they're anything like you and Noah…" Melissa teased.

"Hey," Noah protested, "we weren't that bad."

"You changed the world for me, love," Peter said, dramatically pressing his hands to his heart the way Stiles always did when he was teasing. "Without you I'd be—"

Peter's words cut off at the accidental reminder of mistakes made long ago. They'd never shared the story with their friends and after a few moments of confused silence the easy conversation resumed around them.

Noah hugged his mate harder as the need to apologize again swelled through him. They'd spent years working through the trauma of those fucked-up timelines and Peter had quickly grown tired of Noah's apologies. Some days Noah still wondered how his mate could have forgiven him so easily. After every awful thing Peter had been through he'd still somehow managed to take Noah's ill-considered actions as some sort of compliment.

"I know what you're thinking," Peter whispered so quietly that the humans around them wouldn't be able to overhear. "Do I need to remind you again."

Noah grinned, remembering the line Peter had used over and over again in an attempt to use humor to convince Noah that he was forgiven. "Maybe I do need a reminder," he said. "You know just to make sure my memory is still working properly."

Peter laughed softly, pressed a kiss to Noah's throat, and whispered, "I'm totally adorable. Who wouldn't change the world for me?"

  
  


  
  



End file.
